


A whisper system (In the wrong light anyone can look like darkness)

by viverella



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Flashbacks, M/M, Pining, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sam Wilson is a real life angel, Steve Rogers is a Big Dumb, SteveBucky Big Bang 2014, Team as Family, This has a happy ending I promise, Thor Is Not Stupid, all the PTSD/violence/etc. that comes along with post-catws!bucky, this team is the best team, vague references to the Red Room
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-16
Updated: 2014-11-16
Packaged: 2018-02-25 05:29:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2610218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viverella/pseuds/viverella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve stops looking for Bucky and Bucky starts looking for Steve instead. It's when they meet in the middle that things get more complicated. </p><p>OR: How to put back the pieces when nothing else makes sense.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A whisper system (In the wrong light anyone can look like darkness)

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [A whisper system (In the wrong light anyone can look like darkness)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3347987) by [joankindom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/joankindom/pseuds/joankindom)



> written for the [stevebucky big bang](http://stevebuckybb.livejournal.com) and also marginally for [this prompt](http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/19023.html?thread=43746383#t43746383) over at avengerkink on livejournal (tho really only for the first part). this is my first big bang in like more than a year and about two-thirds of the way through, school decided it was time to thoroughly kick my ass and almost made me not finish on time but it's here! /huge sigh of relief
> 
> a big, big thank you to my wonderful artist [Kathy](http://kelpbass.tumblr.com/), who created such lovely pieces to go along with my fic. we made it! /cheers please, please [check out her art](http://repeatingcarbons.tumblr.com/post/102767192737/for-this-wonderful-fic) because it's fantastic and sniper Bucky is literally my favorite thing!! also, another huge thank you to my amazing beta [Sanya](http://thebarbershopquartet.tumblr.com/) who stepped in at the last minute when I was scrambling to find a beta and gave me better comments than I could've asked for and also managed to make a parks and rec reference along the way and make me laugh while reworking huge chunks of my fic. this fic wouldn't be half as good without her and any remaining mistakes are mine because sometimes I am a Bad Author and don't listen to good advice. 
> 
>  
> 
> title borrowed from part seven of the poem mentioned below by Richard Siken

_"A man does work. A machine can, too. Power of agency, agent of what. This is a question we might ask. An agent is a spy or not. A spy is a promise to God, hidden where only God can find it._

_The agents meet at the chain link fence and tell each other stories. A whisper system. To testify against yourself is an interesting thing, a sacrifice."_

_—from "War of the Foxes" by Richard Siken_

 

 

In the aftermath of everything that happens in DC, Steve runs. He runs to the ends of the earth with Sam at his back, searching desperately for any sign of Bucky before whatever trails he left behind go cold. Steve runs and finds that the more he runs, the fewer leads he finds, and as the months wear on, it feels like they’re falling further and further away from Bucky. Steve wonders what else he could possibly have expected, because, he reminds himself, this isn’t Bucky they’re looking for, not quite, not yet. This is the strange shell of the Winter Soldier and whatever HYDRA left behind of Steve’s best friend, scraped together and held in one piece by nothing more than sheer willpower. Steve has to constantly remind himself that this is different from jumping out of a plane into Austria to rescue a friend who will smile at him in awe and disbelief; this is hunting down a fugitive. 

It occurs to him one night in Bucharest as he’s poring over the dossier that Natasha gave him all those months ago – now stuffed to the brim with newly learned information and dead ends – that he might be going about this the wrong way. He slumps back in the uncomfortable hotel desk chair and stares out the window at the darkened city, quiet and thoughtful. In the dark behind him, Sam snores softly, still faithfully tagging along, solid and sure and reassuring even though they both know this investigation is slowly heading nowhere. Steve sighs and runs a hand through his hair, realizing now that maybe the reason why they haven’t been able to catch up to Bucky all this time is just that – they’re chasing. And he realizes now that Bucky, who’s broken and stranded and lost with no mission or memory anymore, is probably more like a wounded animal than anything else, overcautious and retreating further and further as Steve tries to reach out. 

In the morning, when Sam wakes, he looks around at their bags, already packed up and ready to go. He frowns. He’s exhausted, Steve can tell. He’s done more than he ever needed to. 

“Where to next, boss?” Sam asks as he rolls out of bed and pulls a change of clothing out of his bag. 

Steve rests on the edge of the desk. “Home,” he says, letting out something like a sigh. 

Sam furrows his eyebrows. “You’re not giving up, are you?” he asks, suddenly concerned. 

Steve laughs, and it sounds tired and weak. 

“Of course not,” Steve says, crossing his arms. He offers Sam a small smile, “But we’re both tired and we both know this is going nowhere.”

Sam stares at Steve for a moment, thoughtful. Steve can tell that Sam knows that there’s something Steve isn’t telling him, but Sam nods once anyways and goes to shower and get dressed. They’re on a flight back to DC an hour later in shitty, cramped seats because Steve just booked the tickets the night before. Sam somehow still sleeps almost all the way back, all ten hours, even though they just woke up. 

Steve sighs and leans back in the uncomfortable chair. Yeah, it’s time to go home.

\---

When they arrive back in DC, there’s not much left for them to do. Steve’s old apartment is a mess from when Fury was shot and there are still bloodstains all over the floor. Steve gathers some things that he still cares about – his favorite records, some old photos that the Smithsonian returned to him, a few extra changes of clothing – and heads over to Sam’s. He ends up staying at Sam’s for a few nights before deciding it’s been long enough and calls Tony.

“Steve!” Tony cheers when he answers the phone. He’s been trying to get the team to come back to New York to visit him for some time now. 

“Hey,” Steve says. He hates how tired his voice sounds, despite the fact that he’s been stateside for a few days now. “Does that offer to stay with you still stand?”

Steve hears a faint whirring in the background. Tony must be working on something new right now, maybe a new suit. Steve vaguely remembers hearing about how Tony destroyed all of his suits in some grand display of affection months ago. 

“Of course,” Tony says, unbothered by Steve’s apparent exhaustion. “Any chance you’re bringing Romanov with you?”

“Nah,” Steve sighs. He hasn’t heard from her since she gave him that dossier. “She has some things she’s taking care of.”

Tony makes a pensive sound. “Yeah, I saw,” he says. His voice is soft now and Steve can’t tell if it’s because Tony is genuinely, though unnecessarily, concerned about Natasha or if it’s just because he’s distracted by what he’s working on.

“Do you mind if I bring a friend?” Steve asks. 

“Depends,” Tony says, at least most of his attention back on the conversation again. “Are they an old fart like you?”

Steve rolls his eyes even though Tony can’t see him. “Oh, I think you’ll like him,” he says.

Tony laughs. “I’ll hold you to that,” he says and hangs up. 

Steve stares at his phone for a long moment after the conversation is over. He wonders if he’s been in DC for long enough for Bucky to find him and follow him to New York. He wonders if Bucky is even looking at all. But he can’t squat at Sam’s forever and there’s really nothing here for him anymore, so after a moment he stands and goes to pack his things again.

“Hey, Sam,” Steve calls to the next room where Sam is cooking lunch. “You ever been to New York?”

\---

(Bucky notices, because of course he notices, because he’s been a spy and a killer and an assassin for longer than he’s been alive, _really_ alive, and you don’t get that good and leave behind that much of a legacy if you don’t look and listen and notice. He knows how to track, how people move, knows how to watch and even better how to act, and he notices the instant Steve stops trying to hold a finger to the pulse of the world that Bucky is still trying to unravel, the points that he’s still trying to connect in his desperate search for any sign of his past. 

Bucky notices, because of course he notices, because he’s largely functioning on instinct alone, and every fiber of his being is telling him to stay away, to back off but not that far, to keep away but stay just close enough to catch Steve out of the corner of his eye, because Steve is the only one left, the only one who knows Bucky from the _before_ , and some primal part of him must think that by keeping one eye on Steve and the other one open, he’ll somehow be able to reassemble himself, because when Steve runs, Bucky runs, and he’s out of Kiev and headed back to America before he can even think, because that’s where his own history is written, that’s where his rediscovery lies, trapped inside the mind of a man Bucky can’t touch.)

\---

In New York, Stark Tower is back to its usual, shiny appearance, all fixed up after the attack several months ago. Steve smiles when he sees that Tony left the tower displaying just the large A proudly for the world to see and remembers something about Tony renaming the tower after their rag-tag little team. Maybe Tony really did miss them all. 

Sam lets out a low, appreciative whistle as they stare up at the tower. “You know, when you said we were going to New York, I didn’t realize you meant we were visiting Iron Man,” he says in disbelief and awe. 

Steve grins. As weird as it is being back – because after everything that’s just happened, it’s almost odd to find something that’s still there as it should be – it’s nice. It’s comforting, and it feels almost like home in a way that Steve hasn’t quite been able to capture since waking up from the ice. It’ll be nice to stay in one place for a while, to settle down as much as he ever settles down. He just hopes that the others will get along with Sam as much as he and Natasha did, because after everything that’s happened, Steve can’t see the two of them as anything less than a package deal. 

Tony, of course, laughs when he sees Steve. “You look like shit,” he informs Steve, clapping a friendly hand on Steve’s shoulder. 

Steve rolls his eyes. “It’s good to see you too,” he says. He gestures to Sam. “This is Sam, by the way. Sam, this is Tony.”

Tony looks appraisingly at Sam. “I’ve heard you’re quite the pilot,” Tony says by way of greeting. 

Sam laughs. “You could say that.”

And Steve thinks in relief that they’ll all get along just fine after all. 

\---

Everyone starts trickling slowly back after that, mostly because Tony starts pestering everyone all over again, reasoning that if the old guy can drag his ass back to New York then so can everyone else. When Tony rebuilt the tower, he and Pepper put in a whole suite of rooms for the entire team, cleared out a whole floor for them even, expectant and perfect for each future resident. Steve is marginally surprised by the amount of care Tony took designing all of their rooms, but Tony is particularly observant and quietly thoughtful when no one is looking, so Steve supposes he shouldn’t be so shocked that his rooms are all soft, simple comfort, full of calm, cool colors and a huge pile of extra blankets for when it gets cold. 

Bruce is the first one back and settled in. He’s the only other one actually in the country at the moment, and anyways, he and Tony have this standing arrangement where they get together every so often and have lunch and talk about things that Steve doesn’t quite understand. 

Clint comes crashing in next, looking haggard and frustrated and sporting fresh cuts and bruises all over. He spends the first half an hour after his arrival ranting about being in deep cover when SHIELD collapsed and complaining about how he had to claw his way out when he and everyone around him realized what had happened. 

“I barely made it out alive,” he grumbles as he fixes himself up with the first aid kit that Tony provides. 

Steve is mildly surprised that Thor makes it back before Natasha does, but he supposes he shouldn’t be. Steve doesn’t know what it’s like carving out an identity for yourself, but he imagines it must be difficult. But anyway, Thor comes back and brings along with him some of his booming cheer, which helps distract from Steve’s constant worrying about Bucky and when he’ll show up. 

It’s another couple months before Natasha shows up looking tired as all hell but alive. She’s got a new identity and a new birthday and new hair, cropped short again, slightly darker with sweeping bangs across her forehead and curling in soft waves around her face from where strands have fallen out of her tiny ponytail. She raises an eyebrow at Steve when she arrives. 

“I’m disappointed, Rogers,” she says, but it’s mostly teasing. “Didn’t think you’d give up that easily.”

And then Tony says, “Give up on what?”

And then Natasha and Steve both say, “Nothing.”

And the best part of it all is that everyone seems to take fairly well to Sam, whose wide smiles and good cheer are just mellow enough to smooth out any potential wrinkles between them before they happen. Everyone settles in nicely as if they never left, as if it was always meant to be like this, and everything ends up working out quite nicely.

\---

(Bucky knows that Steve knows that he’s watching, because Steve is trained in combat and works (worked) for an espionage agency, and there’s no way that Steve doesn’t know how this works, no way that he doesn’t hear the occasional pop of static on the phone or notice the slight lag in how long it takes for all of his credit card transactions to go through, because Steve’s _better_ than that, Steve’s _smarter_ than that, and Bucky doesn’t even know how he knows that about Steve because he feels like every time he feels like he knows something about anything, it’s like waking up from a dream, thick and foggy and flitting in and out of focus. 

But the point is that Steve must know, he just has to, because Bucky can’t see any other way around it, and yet Steve does nothing, and Bucky watches as Steve just goes on with his life, surrounds himself with people who Bucky learns top terror watch lists just like the type of people who kept Bucky on ice for seventy years, except that Steve treats them with care, goes on runs with Sam, who followed Steve from DC, and goes to an eclectic assortment of restaurants with Tony, who appears to own the building they all live in, and spars with Natasha, the redhead who makes his head feel like static, four times a week, and Bucky can’t understand why Steve, who’s trained to be more vigilant than this, who should be more suspicious, just continues to go about his life as if nothing were wrong, and Bucky, who has been wired to focus on the rational, on the strictly logical for the past seventy or so years, can’t make a beginning or end of it all, because why go through so much trouble pretending when they both know the truth?)

\---

It’s only a matter of time before trouble starts up in New York, because it’s a big city and things happen. Compared to the cosmic forces they’ve fought together in the past, it’s a simple problem; it’s just some guy with too much money and greed and a small army of shiny robots to throw around. But it gets them all out and acting like a team again, and it’s almost fun, except for the distraught civilians and that one unfortunate car that gets blown up in the first five minutes of the fight. 

About halfway into the fight, Steve realizes that this all feels too easy. He’s really only had to go up against a handful of robots and considering how many there are terrorizing this area of Manhattan, he should have encountered more. And when he takes a moment to look closer at a couple of the machines lying by his feet, he finds that there are a few with damage that looks suspiciously like bullet holes. Steve knows that Natasha’s half a block away and these entry holes are too small to have come from her Glock and she’s busy, besides. Steve looks around, trying to look for the familiar glint of sunlight off the steel barrel of a rifle, but the tall glass buildings around him make it difficult to tell what’s relevant and what’s not.

There’s a crackle in Steve’s earpiece. “Something wrong, Steve?” Sam’s voice comes through.

“No,” Steve says as convincingly as he can, ducking his head back down and running back into the fray. 

“You’re a shit liar,” Natasha calls through the communication line. 

Luckily, no one pushes him any more than that because they really are still busy fighting, and Steve smiles anyways as he knocks a couple robots to the side with his shield, because this is it, this is what he’s been expecting for a while now. He’s felt it for some time now, the weight of Bucky’s eyes on him, the unmistakable sensation of someone observing his every move. He’s felt it ever since he’d decided to stop running and start listening, and he’s been waiting for weeks, wondering what it would be that would finally get Bucky to show his hand. And Steve thinks, later, as he’s helps clean up the huge mess they made, that he shouldn’t be so surprised that this is what finally drew Bucky out of the shadows. He has, after all, made a habit of looking after Steve his entire life. 

\---

It’s not like Bucky’s sudden action makes him any easier to find. But then again, it’s not like Steve expected Bucky to just leap out of nowhere and make his presence known. Steve knows that he’s been trained better than that, and Bucky has probably been especially wary ever since he was cut loose with the dissolution of the HYDRA power structure anyways. And yet every time the team goes out to fight, Steve notices at least a few bodies at his feet peppered with precise gunshot wounds specifically designed to take out opponents with maximum efficiency. 

It’s at least three or four times before anyone really notices anything. Natasha frowns at Steve after one of their fights, looking around at the pile of mechanical bodies by Steve’s feet (and seriously, this has got to be some new craze or something, because it feels like every other guy with enough resources is building robots to take over the world). 

“Those aren’t from my guns,” she observes, because she’s too much of an expert on all this to let something like this slide. It takes another half a moment for things to click into place in her head. She pins Steve with a hard, calculating look. “These are from a sniper rifle.”

Steve carefully avoids her eyes. “So they are.”

Natasha crosses her arms. “ _Steve_ ,” she says, and her voice is stern and serious, no-nonsense in a way that Steve hasn’t heard in ages, not since they’d started to become something like friends. “What’s going on? Is he here?”

“What are you talking about?” Steve says, wincing at the way his voice falters. 

“You’re a shit liar, Steve,” she says, and her voice is sharp. “What the hell is going on?”

“Nat, look, I—” Steve starts. 

“No, Steve,” Natasha says, something rough around the edges in her voice that only slips in when she’s worried, because she knows him and she knows that Steve would defend Bucky until the end of the entire universe, but now is not the time for that. “I know he was your friend and I know he saved you last time you saw him, but HYDRA got in his head. You don’t know what they did to him. He’s dangerous. If you know something about his whereabouts, we should know. We need to be prepared.”

“I don’t know anything,” Steve insists, because it’s true, because he really doesn’t know anything other than the fact that Bucky is watching him. 

Natasha stares at him for a long moment, eyebrows furrowed like she’s trying to decide whether to call him out or let it go, and Steve, who has known war and death his entire life, feels a sort of fear that has nothing to do with either catch in his throat. 

“I can’t just give up,” he says, hating the way his voice shakes, just slightly. 

Natasha’s posture softens as she lets out a huff that might be a sigh or a laugh if she weren’t so tense. “Be careful,” she says, and it’s less of a warning than she probably means for it to be. 

\---

When it happens, it happens like this: 

Bucky getting too bold and shooting down too many opponents. 

Clint noticing from a nearby rooftop and finding the source of the extra gunfire like he’s been trained to do his entire adult life. 

Clint saying, “There’s someone here” and drawing his bow, arrow set to stun, careful. 

Steve shouting “No!” and demanding that Sam lift him up to where Clint is pointing. 

A tense silence falling over the scene when Sam knowingly, silently, unquestioningly obeys. 

Natasha gritting out, “What the hell, Steve?” just as Tony asks, “What’s going on?”

Steve landing delicately on the rooftop, cautious, and catching a flash of silver in the corner of his eye. 

Bucky slowly standing from a crouch when he sees Steve, looking messy and haunted and like he hasn’t slept in months.

Bucky gripping his gun in his left hand like it’s the only thing he knows. 

Steve realizing that this just might be the truth. 

Steve saying, “Bucky” and not missing the way Bucky flinches at the sound of his own name. 

Saying, “I’m not going to hurt you” and letting his shield fall to the ground just like all those months ago on that helicarrier, hands raised in a display of good faith, hoping beyond all reason that Bucky will believe him. 

Steve inching closer like he’s walking on glass, hands still raised all the while, and saying, “You saved me.”

And saying, “Let me help you.”

And saying, “Please.”

Bucky saying, in a voice that sounds like it hasn’t been used in too long, rusty and crackling at the edges, “I don’t know you.”

Bucky dropping his gun like a surrender anyways. 

\---

(Steve’s hands are warm and gentle on Bucky’s skin and warmer and gentler on his metal arm, too familiar and so foreign at the same time, feeling like this is the hundredth and this is the first time Steve has ever touched him, and somehow, Bucky doesn’t quite know how it happened because they were on the rooftop and then they weren’t and then Steve was arguing with those people he spends all his time with and then it was all shooing and quiet and _hush now this has to be a secret no one can know_ , and somehow, Bucky winds up in a suite of rooms that are blue all over, calming and quiet and safe, and oh god, how long has it been since Bucky felt _safe?_

And then Steve disappears into another room, leaving Bucky reeling alone in a sea of blue, and he reappears wearing sweatpants and a plain white t-shirt instead of the red-white-blue all over suit that Bucky remembers and doesn’t remember, flashing behind his eyelids like he’s been staring at the sun for too long, and Steve’s asking if Bucky needs anything and offering to find him some clean clothes and offering to draw him a bath and offering his bed if Bucky wants to sleep and offering and offering and offering and never demanding, never pushing, and just asking, and Bucky can’t even find his voice in his throat because he can’t remember the last time he was asked if he wanted anything, can’t remember the last time he was given a choice.)

\---

Steve draws Bucky a bath. Bucky hasn’t said a single word since arriving at the tower but seems to be partial to the idea of a bath, judging by his expression. 

“Can your arm get wet?” Steve asks, because he still doesn’t quite understand how Bucky’s arm works, only that its probably right at the edge of the kind of thing that Tony could design. 

Bucky gives a curt nod, and Steve smiles, trying not to compare this hardened shell of a man to the laughing, cocky kid he’d grown up with. Bucky stands stiffly in the doorway of the bathroom, watching as the bathtub slowly fills with warm water. He hasn’t moved since Steve started. 

Steve looks up at him again, fingertips lingering in the bathwater to make sure it’s not too hot. “You might want to take your clothes off first if you want a bath,” he urges gently. 

Bucky blinks and his weight shifts slightly, like he’s never thought of this before. Steve wonders when the last time Bucky actually had a bath instead of just being wiped down like a machine. Bucky hesitates for a moment, thinking, before moving to strip out of his clothing, peeling off his combat suit in quick, efficient movements. As the black leather gives away to skin, Steve has to actively suppress the urge to draw in a startled breath, because Bucky’s torso and right arm and legs and every inch of skin are peppered with scars of varying shapes and sizes. Small, round scars from punctures and needles shoved too roughly into worn skin are mixed in amongst the long, pale lines of pinched skin from knives or worse dragged carelessly across his body. Steve doesn’t even want to think about what the scars mean or why each particular one was inflicted. He thinks he might fall apart if he lets himself wonder, and he can’t do that, not when Bucky is still trying to pull himself back together. 

Water splashes against the rim of the tub and Steve turns to shut the water off. He stands and gestures towards the tub and waits for Bucky to step gingerly in, movements too cautious but still trusting that this is going to be okay somehow anyways. Bucky lowers himself into the tub and lets himself slide down until he’s submerged up to his chin in warm water. He flexes his left hand and rolls his shoulder back, and Steve can’t help staring at where the metal meets skin, red and angry and scarred more than any other part of him. 

“I can leave if you want,” Steve offers, already moving as if to exit. 

But then Bucky looks up at him with these eyes that are wide and lost and so unlike the Bucky that Steve knew, and Bucky shakes his head minutely and turns his head away, ducking his chin into the water. Steve smiles and sits down on the floor by the bathtub. Bucky is silent for a long time, staring blankly at nothing in particular, and Steve wonders if Bucky only wants him around because he doesn’t want to be alone. 

“There’s shampoo and soap,” Steve says, pointing. “If you want to clean up a bit.”

Bucky looks at the shampoo like he’s never seen anything like it before. Steve offers a small, encouraging smile. 

“Do you want help?” he asks. 

Bucky stares at Steve like Steve’s speaking a foreign language. After a moment, though, he concedes and hands Steve the shampoo bottle. Steve squeezes out a generous amount into his hand and sets the bottle aside, moving first to scoop some water out of the tub and wet Bucky’s hair. He’s careful to keep his touches light and his movements slow and deliberate, not wanting to be too forceful, not wanting to upset the delicate balance that this calm seems to depend on. He gently massages the shampoo into Bucky’s hair and doesn’t miss the way Bucky’s wild and frightened eyes slowly, slowly slip closed, the planes of his face gradually smoothing out into something that’s not quite relaxed but at least trying to be. With the tired lines retreating a bit from Bucky’s face, he looks unbearably young, so painfully the same as the last time Steve saw him on a train in the Alps. Steve ignores the way his chest aches at the old memories that still feel so new. 

“You used to take care of me, you know,” Steve says softly, because he feels like he should say something, because it really is a strange situation, with him taking care of Bucky instead of the other way around. “I’d get sick all the time, especially in the winter, and after my mom died, you’d always stay up half the night to make sure I was alright, even if you had work in the morning. Thought I didn’t notice, but I always knew.”

Bucky opens his eyes and the look he gives Steve is one that’s almost wonder, if Bucky could muster up enough emotional power to create a look of wonder. Or maybe it’s just confusion. Steve’s not sure if there’s even a difference at this point. 

“You were always thoughtful like that,” Steve finishes, hating the way that there’s so little recognition in Bucky’s eyes that it feels like he really is talking to a ghost.

He sits back to rinse the shampoo out of Bucky’s hair. Bucky looks somewhat ridiculous with his hair all lathered up in foamy white bubbles, and Steve would laugh if the silly scene weren’t contrasted with the vacancy in his eyes, the absence where his warm friend should be. Steve swallows the feeling in his chest and rinses out Bucky’s hair, so much longer than Steve has ever felt but just as soft. 

“I’m going to get you a clean towel and some clothes,” Steve says, standing. 

He makes it out of the bathroom and halfway to his closet before he lets out the breath he’s been holding for quite some time now. It feels like he’s been punched in the chest, the way Bucky looks at him like he knows he should trust Steve but at the same time doesn’t know him at all. And Steve’s left feeling like he’s a kid again, putting on a brave face so those around him won’t worry, and the pressure of it feels like it’s closing in on him from all sides all over again, even though this has just begun. It’s just that every time Steve looks at Bucky, it’s like he’s fading around the edges, and Steve has this sickening feeling that Bucky would cave in on himself in the worst way, like a dying star compressing in until there was nothing left but a black void if he had nothing real to hang onto, but Steve’s not sure he knows how to be solid ground. 

Steve steadies himself with a long, slow breath, in and out, and goes to his closet, picking out some clothing that he hopes will fit alright. He grabs a few different pairs of pants and a handful of shirts before heading back. He drops the clothing on his bed so Bucky can choose what to wear later and grabs a clean towel from the linen closet by the bathroom before heading back in. 

Bucky’s standing in the middle of the bathroom, a small puddle of water collecting at his feet. The bathtub is slowly draining behind him. Now with the dirt and grime washed off of him, he’s beginning to look more like how Steve remembers, familiar except for the sunken cheeks and innumerable scars. It would almost be a comforting sight if Bucky weren’t staring at himself in the mirror like he doesn’t even recognize himself. Steve bites down on a sigh. They’ve really got a long way to go. 

\---

Tony insists on a debriefing later that day. He insists to Steve in the hallway outside Steve’s suite of rooms that they all have a right to know what’s going on, and who does Steve think he is, bringing home a complete stranger without ever mentioning it beforehand anyways? And the thing is, Steve knows that Tony’s right, because he’s been unfair and too secretive about this whole thing, but there’s a part of him that’s reluctant to talk. It’s like he’s afraid that talking will make this all too real, that in talking he’ll have to confront the grim reality of everything that Bucky has faced in the past seventy years and everything that could now be impossible because of the torture he’s been subjected to. 

But Steve agrees anyways, because he knows it’s the right thing to do, and ten minutes later, he’s walking into their main conference room, where Tony’s already got data from their last fight pulled up, tech specs blinking across the screen along with clips and photographs of the fight for analysis. The others are all gathered around the table already, looking through and compiling information to hand over to the DA so the city can figure out what to do with the guy they just stopped from destroying half the city. There’s a light chatter hovering in the air when Steve walks in, but the room falls silent when each of them spots Bucky walking in half a pace behind Steve. 

Steve feels his back go rigid on instinct alone, not used to being looked at with this kind of wariness from people he considers his friends, and his discomfort must show, because Tony comes up to him and says quietly, “Look, none of us are trying to accuse you of anything, okay? None of us _want_ to throw some innocent guy out on the street. But you do owe us an explanation. We all live here. I think we all just want to know that we’re safe. That’s all.”

And that helps but as Steve starts talking to all of them, telling them about how Bucky fell into HYDRA hands and how they tortured and experimented and whittled away at his soul until he was poked full of holes, a certain tension that’s never been a part of their meetings introduces itself to the room. It’s a sense of suspicion, of mistrust, sharp and doubtful eyes on Bucky, on his vacant expression, on his metal arm. Bruce lingers awkwardly at the very edge of the room, calm except for the way he’s clutching at his own hands so tightly his knuckles are white. Clint whispers something in Natasha’s ear, his expression uncharacteristically solemn, and she flicks his knee like she’s trying to come off as playful, but Steve doesn’t miss the way that her pistol sits on the table in front of her, easily and carefully within arm’s reach. Even Thor, who is more heart and care than anything else, has Mjolnir sitting by his side even though he usually never bothers to go around inside the tower with it. 

Steve catches Sam’s eye from across the table, and Sam offers a small smile of encouragement, and when he looks to Tony, he’s nodding for Steve to continue as well, so Steve takes a breath to steady his nerves and presses on. He tells them about what happened in DC and running through Eastern Europe and what he’s been able to gather about Bucky’s movements after his return to America. All the while, Bucky lingers behind him, sitting motionless and expressionless in his chair, looking empty and out of place in clothes that are half a size too big for him. Steve doesn’t really blame the others for being so uncertain about this entire situation.

“Look,” Steve says, sighing because he’s tired and the lack of response from them makes him feel so frustrated because it’s like they think he’s crazy, which he might be, but he’d think that they’d all have a little more faith in him. “I don’t expect any of you to trust him; you have no reason to. All I ask is that you trust me on this and trust that I wouldn’t be asking you guys to let him stay here if I thought that this would pose any serious danger to any of you.”

The room is silent for a long moment. Natasha’s got her arms crossed and she’s frowning in a way that Steve can’t quite get a read on, and Steve wonders if she’s thinking about all of her previous run-ins with the Winter Soldier and the scars she’s taken away from their encounters. Clint, who’s been working in espionage for long enough to be almost as naturally suspicious as Natasha, shifts in his seat uncertainly. Bruce is still wary in that careful way of his, and Thor has relaxed in the intervening minutes since Steve started speaking and now looks more quietly curious more than anything else. Sam has been cautious throughout but Steve can see in his eyes that he trusts Steve with his life and will be okay with this whole thing if everyone else is, while Tony taps his fingers restlessly on the tabletop like he’s considering something carefully. 

“Well, what’s the worst that could happen, right?” Tony says cheerfully, though Steve just barely catches the guarded undercurrent in his voice like he’s being twice as confident as he feels. 

Clint raises his eyebrows at Tony, suspicion still creased into the set of his mouth. Tony shrugs and the tension starts to dissipate a little, still present and humming quietly in the background but maybe just a little less harsh. 

Natasha opens her mouth after a moment and says something steely and Russian, and it sounds like a warning. Bucky – who’s been sitting in a chair behind Steve with his elbows resting on he knees, eyes trained downwards in an overt display of submission, so deliberately nonthreatening that it hurts Steve to look at him – lifts his eyes to meet hers. The curve of his brow is angry but he spits out a couple syllables in a language that Steve has never heard him speak before. It’s only the second time Steve has heard Bucky speak since that day on the helicarrier and his voice sounds rough like sandpaper, like he isn’t used to being spoken to anymore. Steve has no idea what Bucky says but he must agree with whatever Natasha said to him, because she nods her head once and turns away, arms still crossed and mouth still tense but willing to go along with the way things are for the time being. 

And Steve thinks okay, well, that went better than expected, all things considered. 

\---

Steve lets Bucky sleep in his bed that first night without even thinking about it, pulling extra blankets and pillows out of the closet to set up shop on the couch on the far side of the room. 

“If you want to,” Steve says, gesturing to the bed, trying to be careful enough to put everything he says to Bucky into open ended offers instead of demands. “Sleep, that is. It’s all yours.”

Bucky looks at Steve like he doesn’t know what to do with this information, but after a beat nods and sits down on the edge of the bed. Steve smiles. 

“I have some books, if you want to read,” Steve says. “Or you can watch TV – did you know TV’s in color now? I’m sure Tony has some movies somewhere that you could watch too. Whatever you want.”

And mostly, he’s just rambling, he knows. It’s just that Bucky keeps looking at him with this blank expression and Steve’s knows better than to hope that if he talks for long enough, something will jar loose in Bucky, but he hopes at least that if he keeps goimg, this will all seem less strange than it really is. That if he keeps talking, maybe it’ll start to seem a little more normal, or at least as normal as things ever were between them. 

Bucky goes to sleep fully clothed, his body tense even in slumber. Between reading snippets of a book Sam suggested to him by the dim light of a lamp by the couch, Steve watches as Bucky’s body doesn’t so much as unwind but simply flattens out, the danger and cat-like reflexes not quite shut off. Steve feels vaguely creepy for watching Bucky so intently like this, but he’s half worried that Bucky will wake up screaming and gasping for breath like Steve did those first several months after coming out of the ice, flashes of the plane crash constantly running through his head like it happened just the other day instead of seventy years ago. But Bucky just sleeps on, and after a while, satisfied that Bucky’s getting at least some rest, Steve lets himself relax too. 

Some indeterminable number of hours later, Steve wakes. It’s still dark, and even though Steve doesn’t remember falling asleep, his book is set aside on the nearby coffee table and his blanket is pulled up to his chin and the lamp is turned off. Steve frowns at the darkness, confused for a brief moment before he notices that his bed is empty. Steve leaps out of bed, suddenly wide awake, suddenly terrified of where Bucky might have run off to or what he might have gone to do. Steve just hopes that Bucky stayed within Avengers Tower at least, because he wouldn’t know where else to look. 

He looks in the gym first, because he thinks that maybe Bucky got restless and somehow found the gym and decided to blow off some steam. But Bucky’s not there and Steve runs all over the tower, growing more and more desperate as each room he searches turns up empty, scared that he’ll find Bucky a wreck in a room full of broken things or scared that he won’t find Bucky at all, unsure of which situation is worse. 

When he finally does find Bucky, it’s like a coil wrapped tight in his chest unfurls and the horrible, sick feeling in his stomach begins to dissipate. Bucky is sitting out on the sundeck, crouched by the railing, knees pulled up with his arms resting around his legs. His long hair is in a mess around his face and he looks like he’s trying to make himself disappear, so closely wound around himself that Steve wouldn’t have even been able to spot him if it weren’t for the shine of his metal arm in the moonlight. He’s staring down at the city below with a sort of dull, unfocused fascination like he doesn’t know what else to do with himself, and Steve wonders what it must be like for him, cut loose without a mission, without a _purpose_ for the first time in so long.

Steve slowly makes his way over to where Bucky is sitting, taking care to make his footsteps heard so he won’t startle Bucky. Bucky doesn’t acknowledge or even look at Steve when Steve approaches, but the weight of his body shifts just a touch, accommodating as if by instinct more than anything else. Steve sits down next to Bucky, back to the city, leaning against the railing that Bucky’s looking through. The sundeck is cool against his bare feet and the breeze is chilly since he’s dressed down in only a thin t-shirt and pajama pants. Bucky doesn’t look at all bothered even though he’s not wearing much more than Steve and he’s certainly been out here longer. Steve wonders if he just doesn’t feel it anymore or if he’s been rewired to not react. 

A silence hovers around them but it’s not especially uncomfortable, all things considered. If Steve closes his eyes and tries hard enough, he could almost imagine that they’re back in Brooklyn in that shitty, drafty one-bedroom apartment they used to share. But Bucky’s sharper around the edges now and even sitting next to him feels harsher, and part of Steve knows that things will never be the way that they were. 

“I don’t know you,” Bucky says suddenly, softly, as if he knows what Steve’s thinking and is trying to remind him of the truth. 

Steve sighs. “I know.”

\---

(What Bucky remembers, he remembers in flashes, like pictures moving too quickly across a screen, like everything is swimming in and out of focus and all he can make out are glimpses – the edge of a smile, the scratchy sound of pencil on paper, the groaning of old floorboards, the sound of rain falling on countless tents in the middle of nowhere, the squish of mud beneath his boots – and Bucky can’t figure out how the pieces fit together yet, can’t even figure out what order they go in, whether one thing comes before the other or if anything he remembers is related at all, only that they are him, they make up what he was and what he could’ve been, that these brief snippets are all he has left of himself and for that reason, he holds onto them, clinging onto them as tightly as he can when he feels himself slipping farther away, when he feels his vision going white around the edges, and when he finds himself halfway to punching Steve in the chest and Steve’s looking at him like he’s terrified for _Bucky_ rather than himself, it’s the faint laugh flicking in and out of focus that reels him back in, because he remembers, dammit, he _remembers_ , remembers that laugh that always sounded too big for the body it resided in. He remembers because this can’t be the only thing he has left, an empty head and a metal arm and anger, so much anger – there has to be more than this, because Steve keeps looking at him like he’s the answer to everything and Bucky knows in his gut without knowing how or why that Steve wouldn’t do this to himself if there wasn’t a part of him that believed that there could be something tucked away in Bucky’s head, because that has to be true, it has to, it has to.)

\---

Bucky doesn’t interact with the others much. Hell, he doesn’t even interact with _Steve_ much. Most of the time, he keeps to himself and doesn’t say more than a handful of words on a good day, and even so, the tension that permeated that first meeting quickly melts away, and soon, everyone is acting like they’ve always had this strange, quiet, possibly murderous man living with them. 

After a week or so, Tony takes to calling Bucky “tin man” and the number of old person jokes increases exponentially now that there are two ninety-something year olds living in Avengers Tower. 

After two weeks, a few pamphlets titled “Coping with PTSD” and “PTSD: Tips for Family, Friends, and Caregivers” and the like show up on the corkboard in the kitchen where they all pin up important things (probably courtesy of Sam since he’s the only one who really knows anything about anything regarding this subject), and they all suspiciously disappear for several hours at a time only to be put back later in the week over the course of the next several days. 

Bucky mumbles a couple words in response to something Natasha mutters under her breath in Russian one day when Clint accidentally sets the stove on fire, and it makes her laugh, so she takes to speaking to Bucky in Russian every day even though Bucky hardly ever responds, and judging by the conspiratorial tone of her voice, it sounds like she’s taken to gossiping to Bucky about anything she finds interesting. 

There’s one time Bucky puts hazelnut coffee creamer in his coffee and drinks the whole thing in record time, and from then on, whenever Steve comes into the kitchen after one of his early morning runs, he notices that Clint, who’s usually in charge of making coffee in the morning, starts leaving the hazelnut creamer out next to the coffee maker so Bucky won’t have to go looking for it. 

It’s almost startling how easy everything feels, but when Steve really thinks about it, he thinks that maybe it’s not such a surprise that everyone’s warming to Bucky. After all, Steve knows better than anyone that this is a group of people who have gone through their own personal hells to make it here. And even though Bucky has gone through more and worse than probably any of them, there’s a certain understanding that comes along with the territory that, for as much as they joke around, makes all of them take half a step back first and just let Bucky breathe and find his own space again, and for that, Steve is grateful.

\---

Steve very quickly realizes that Bucky has a habit of keeping odd hours. Maybe it’s a residual reaction to being frozen and unfrozen so many times against his will that Bucky can’t seem to sleep more than a few hours at a time. Maybe there’s just too much unspent energy trapped between his shoulders that he has to let out. Regardless of what the reason is, Steve keeps finding himself waking up in the middle of the night with the distinct feeling he’s being watched, but every time he opens his eyes, he finds his room dark and empty, the bed rumpled and clearly slept in but vacant. 

Sometimes, Steve manages to find him, usually out on the sundeck or curled up in a vacant room next to the ceiling-to-floor windows that grace many of the Avengers Tower rooms. Bucky seems to like open spaces, and Steve wonders if that has anything to do with being so contained for so long. 

Sometimes, though, Steve can’t find Bucky all day. He suspects that Bucky probably runs away most days, even though he has no way of knowing this. What he does know is that whatever Bucky spends his days doing, he always makes it back to the tower at night, sometimes in a mess, but back nonetheless. Steve lives in fear of the day that he’ll return to his suite at night after sparring with Natasha or having tea with Bruce or watching a movie with Thor to find his room empty. But each night, when Steve takes an assortment of food back to his suite for Bucky to choose from, he finds Bucky either stepping out of the shower or sitting on the edge of the bed paging through one of Steve’s books, and Steve feels like he can breathe a little bit. 

“You know,” Steve says one evening as he pulls the lids off of various food containers and Bucky watches. “I think it would be good for you to spend more time with the others.”

Bucky, who’s settled on eating some of the leftover pasta that Pepper made for lunch (though it feels more like Bucky’s just picking a random number out of a hat than properly choosing), freezes, fork halfway to his mouth. Steve presses on. 

“I’ve talked to Sam a little,” Steve says gently. “And I know what you must be going through is bigger and crazier than your average PTSD, but I thought he might know something that might help.”

Bucky stares at Steve, eyebrows furrowed into a confused crease. Steve takes a deep breath to steady himself, hating how talking to someone who should be his best friend feels like walking on eggshells. 

“Sam says that an important part of recovery is rebuilding the social parts of your life and relearning how to function with people,” Steve tells him. “I know that everyone really is okay with you being here. And they’re much more understanding about your situation than they might’ve let on the other day when you met them. I think they would like getting to know you a little bit better, if you want to spend some time with them.”

Bucky blinks. He’s quiet and still for a long moment before ducking his head and taking a bite of the pasta in front of him. He doesn’t look like he tastes it at all. 

When Steve sees that Bucky isn’t going to offer a response to his suggestion, he suppresses a sigh and grabs one of the food containers. They eat in silence. 

“You’ve met Natasha before, you know,” Steve says, because Natasha has carefully left out enough whenever Bucky comes up in conversation for Steve to know that her history with Bucky is complicated, to say the least. Steve adds, “I mean, you met her before, you know, all that.” He waves his hand to signify their last fight in DC. 

Bucky pauses, his mouth pressed into a thin line. 

“Odessa,” Bucky says finally, and it sounds like the word has been dragged out of his throat. 

Steve’s shoulders sag just a little because he was hoping for more than that, but everything surrounding Bucky only makes it halfway right now, and he’ll take what he can get. 

“Yeah,” Steve says. “Do you remember that?”

Bucky shrugs and looks down at his food again, picking aimlessly at it. The silence is heavy around them, and all he ends up saying is, “I completed my mission.”

Steve’s chest clenches uncomfortably at that, at the constant reminder of everything Bucky has had to endure. 

“Do you remember your missions?” Steve asks. 

Bucky doesn’t look up. “Some,” he says, and his voice sounds like it’s choking him. 

Steve sighs and this time he can’t stop it, because Bucky looks so tortured and Steve wonders if Bucky remembers any of the good things yet or if it’s just the killing and pain and death. After a beat, Steve changes the subject and offers something lighter, trying to bring some much needed levity to the situation.

“We do brunch on Saturdays,” Steve says. “Everyone brings or cooks something, even if it’s just coffee. You should join us if you feel up to it.”

Bucky works his jaw for a moment, and Steve worries for one terrifying moment that Bucky will shut him out entirely, close off because Steve is pushing too hard. 

“I don’t cook,” Bucky says, sounding marginally less like he’s made of glass. 

Steve laughs, resolutely ignoring the fact that Bucky’s comment would’ve been accompanied by one of his quiet, self-deprecating chuckles if this had been before the war and they’d still been two kids trying to scrounge up enough food to get by for the week. 

“It’s okay,” he says. “Half of us can’t cook either.” And then he adds, almost like a suggestion, “Thor likes to pick up fruit every week. There’s this Asian market a couple blocks away that he’s taken a liking to and he likes to bring new, different fruits that no one’s ever tried before to brunch.”

Bucky doesn’t respond. Steve doesn’t expect him to.

\---

The next morning, when Steve wakes up, Bucky is, predictably, nowhere to be found. But when Steve walks into the kitchen where Sam is cooking pancakes and Pepper is setting a plate of eggs and bacon and sausages on the table and Clint is making coffee, there’s a brown paper bag on the counter that no one seems to be acknowledging. Steve eyes it curiously. 

“Someone left you a gift,” Natasha says as she walks by him, still dressed in her running gear and holding a bag of bagels. Steve wonders if, when she got up early for her morning run, she bumped into Bucky. 

Steve peeks into the bag, smiling when he sees what Bucky left him. Natasha raises her eyebrows at him when she sees his expression and stands up on her toes to see what Steve’s so happy about. 

“Apples?” she says, unimpressed. “That’s an interesting choice for a grand gesture.”

But Steve smiles anyways, because Steve has always loved apples; his mother always went out of her way to bake him apple pie on his birthday despite how little extra money they had. And after his mother died and Steve and Bucky started living together, Bucky would always come home every year on Steve’s birthday with an armful of apples that he’d never admit to stealing or working too many extra shifts down at the docks to buy. Neither of them cooked or baked much back then, and they didn’t have a working oven anyways, but the apples were sweet enough on their own and Steve appreciated the gesture more than he could ever say. Steve smiles because some part of Bucky must remember this little detail, maybe without knowing why, but he thought enough of it to leave this surprise for Steve. 

“I thought you didn’t believe in grand gestures,” Steve says to Natasha. 

She smiles that smile of hers that hides more than it reveals. “I don’t,” she says, walking over to the table and setting the bagels down. 

Steve chuckles and goes to get a plate to cut up some of the apples for brunch, deciding to cheat just a little bit on the whole “everybody contributes their own thing” rule today. He walks over to the table with a huge plate of fruit just as Sam is swooping in with fresh pancakes. Pepper smiles warmly at Sam.

“You know,” she says. “It’s so nice that there’s finally someone else around here who can cook good breakfast food.”

Tony looks at her, bewildered. “I cook,” he insists. 

Pepper gives Tony a look that’s long-suffering and dubious and just a touch too fond. “You maybe know how to operate a stove,” she corrects, which earns her an offended look from Tony. She laughs, “Omelets aren’t meant to be sweet, Tony.”

Tony blinks. “I thought it tasted fine,” he defends himself. 

Pepper pats him gently on the shoulder and smiles. “You may have been the only one.”

Everyone laughs at Tony’s affronted look, and brunch ends up being nice as always, warm and friendly and easy like things should be. Bucky never does make it to the table, but Clint jokes that maybe hitting Bucky over the head with a metal rod might jog some memories and no one seems concerned about the possibility that Bucky might still running on his homicidal programing and did something funny to the apples, so Steve considers the morning a win. He takes a couple apples back with him to his room before starts his day, putting them on the nightstand by the bed. He scribbles _Thanks –Steve_ on a slip of paper before turning to leave and shutting the lights off. 

Tony ends up deciding that today’s a good day to continue Steve’s reeducation in American culture and announces an all-day Star Trek marathon. This prompts Clint to jump in and the two of them spend the better part of an hour arguing over the merits of Star Wars versus Star Trek before Sam jumps in and votes for Star Trek and since no one else really cares, well, majority rules. Clint crosses his arms and grumbles about how many episodes and films they have to watch now because of course Tony is going to make them watch every single Star Trek thing ever, and Natasha laughs at him as they all settle down to watch and throws her legs across his lap. 

Over the course of the day, Steve thinks he manages to catch a glimmer of silver out of the corner of his eye, but he can’t be quite sure because every time he turns to look, he finds nothing but empty space. But when Steve goes back to his room in the evening, arms full of food as usual, he finds Bucky sitting on the bed, eating an apple and staring at the note that Steve left him. Bucky quickly shoves the note under his pillow when Steve walks in, his metal fingers quick and nimble, and Steve doesn’t say a word about it. Instead, Steve sets the food down on the coffee table and asks:

“Good day?”

Bucky hesitates and then nods and bites a little too viciously into his apple. Steve smiles, perhaps just a touch fonder than he means.

\---

(Bucky remembers and he doesn’t remember, finding pieces of himself as the whole picture slips through his fingers like sand, the larger arc of his life lost amongst the little details – Steve’s hand on his arm, thin and frail and large even then, never mind that Steve’s head never made it up past Bucky’s chin; the rattling sound of Steve’s coughs, the way he always sounded like he has halfway to coughing up a lung when he got sick and sick was often, sick was a constant, sick was terrifying; the taste of blood in his mouth from jumping into one of Steve’s fights and getting a punch in the face for all his efforts; the smell of gunpowder in his hair and white noise rushing in his ears and watching a shadowy figure crumble in the distance and seeing Steve through his scope, safe and alive and in one piece and seeking him out with eyes that have always been a little too soft – and Bucky knows, as if on instinct, that all these pieces of his life, all these fragments he’s found and probably will find are all Steve, even though his memories are warped and distorted at the edges like he’s looking through water. 

Bucky remembers and doesn’t remember, and every time he closes his eyes, Steve is all he sees, Steve, Steve, always Steve, until all Bucky knows is that in remembering Steve, he’ll find himself, because Steve has always been the best thing about Bucky.) 

\---

It takes a lot more encouragement and gentle prodding for Bucky to actually join them in a public space. It’s a couple weeks later when Steve’s in the gym with Natasha and Clint and Sam. Bruce and Tony are in the lab tinkering with some new toys for them all, and Thor’s gone off for the day to spend time with Jane, whose schedule is erratic at best, so whenever she has a snatch of free time, Thor’s nowhere to be found. Bucky wasn’t in the room when Steve woke up in the morning, but Steve hopes like he does every day that this is going to be the day that Bucky decides he’s ready to start to opening up. 

Steve’s over by the punching bags when Bucky walks in, and Clint and Sam are sitting at the top of the rock wall that Natasha is scaling, eating from a giant bowl of grapes, and Clint is harassing Natasha while claiming that the distraction is supposed to help her practice her concentration. It’s Natasha who notices Bucky’s entrance, turning her head over in the direction of the door while hanging precariously off of the rock wall. 

“Hey there, soldier,” she says, coy and playful and too familiar considering how little Bucky likely remembers about her. 

Bucky looks at her with eyes that are still vaguely cloudy but clearer than they have been in the past weeks. “Natalia,” he says by way of greeting. 

Natasha’s mouth twists into that secretive smile of hers. “No one’s called me Natalia in a long time,” she says softly, and maybe Steve’s imagining things but there’s almost a hint of something that would be nostalgic in her expression, if she were the type to get nostalgic. “Everyone calls me Natasha now. Or Nat, if you like to be efficient about it.”

Bucky’s eyebrows furrow, but he nods, and she grins. From above her, a handful of grapes come raining down.

“Hey!” Clint calls down. “What happened to ‘nothing distracts me’?”

“Oh come on, man,” Sam says to Clint. “Who’s going to clean that up? Are you going to clean that up?”

Clint shrugs and grins. “Maybe I will,” he says, and then more pointedly at Natasha, “If Nat ever makes it up here. Or else _she’s_ cleaning it up.”

Natasha rolls her eyes. “Don’t you threaten me, Barton,” she warns, mock serious and already quickly climbing the remaining stretch of wall left. 

Bucky watches this exchange, lost and out of place until he spots Steve coming over to where he’s hovering by the door. 

“Hey, Buck,” Steve smiles. “You need something?”

Bucky opens his mouth to say something and hesitates and then, after a moment’s consideration, says, apropos of nothing, “You said it’d be a fairer fight between us now.”

And it takes Steve a moment to remember what Bucky’s talking about – the two of them after Steve found Bucky and they made it back to Italy and staying up stupid late drinking even though Steve couldn’t even get drunk because they were so goddamn relieved to have found each other alive, and Bucky, way past drunk and poking at Steve’s newly muscled chest like he couldn’t believe his eyes and saying, “Guess you don’t need me to beat up bullies for you anymore, huh, kid?” and Steve laughing and saying, “Well, I guess it just means it’d be a fairer fight between the two of us now” and Bucky rolling his eyes because they both knew there would be nothing fair about that fight. Steve grins and thinks that this may be the first time in their entire lives that a fight between the two of them would be anything close to fair. 

“C’mon,” Steve says and goes over to where he keeps his things, tossing Bucky a roll of gauze to wrap at least his non-metal hand in so his fingers and wrists won’t get too beat up. 

Bucky quickly and expertly bandages up both of his hands, and Steve wonders if bandaging up the metal one is more for his benefit or Bucky’s. Over on the rock wall, the light chatter from Natasha, Sam, and Clint has died down, and Steve can almost feel their anticipation. As Steve puts the gauze away again, Sam calls out: 

“You sure this is a good idea, guys? You don’t want to trigger him.”

Steve raises his eyebrows at Bucky, who just shrugs, which Steve takes to mean that Bucky feels stable enough for some friendly sparring. And anyways, this must be a sign that Bucky’s remembering, right? It must be that he’s remembering more about his past with Steve and the little offhand comments they’d toss back and forth in the hours when they tried to forget that around them, the world was crumbling into pieces. 

As Steve and Bucky step into the floor space cleared for sparring, Steve hears Natasha call out, “Hey JARVIS, call Tony, would you? He’s not going to want to miss this.”

“Of course, Ms. Romanov.” 

Bucky startles at the disembodied voice, but Steve puts a careful hand on Bucky’s shoulder and says softly, “Hey” and Bucky’s suddenly tense body starts to unwind just a little. Bucky really starts to loosen the moment they start sparring, the two of them finding their rhythm as easy as breathing, as if it’s always been this way, quick punches and jabs and the two of them finally on equal grounds instead of Steve, tiny and skinny and bowing over far too easily, in the middle of their sparsely furnished living room with Bucky trying to teach him how to defend himself. Steve finds himself grinning without meaning to because for once Bucky doesn’t feel broken, for once Bucky feels familiar, moving to counter and balance Steve’s movements like he has their entire lives. 

Bucky ends up winning that round, throwing Steve on the ground with a loud thump. From the rock wall, Sam lets out a loud whoop and Natasha is laughing and cheering and Clint’s speechless, eyes wide with a mixture of delight and amazement. Steve lets out a laugh that’s one part in response to the dull ache in his shoulder from being thrown on the ground and two parts sheer joy at having whatever small part of Bucky this may be back, at being able to talk with him, if only through hands bandaged in gauze and bare feet and bodies moving in concert across a padded floor. 

“Oh my god,” Tony says from somewhere near the door of the gym, and since when were Tony and Bruce watching them anyways? Tony’s expression is bright and open in a display of excitement so enthusiastic that it’s almost blinding. Tony hits Bruce, who’s doing his very best not to laugh outright, and points as if Bruce couldn’t see for himself. “Oh my god, this is the greatest thing that has ever happened. Nat, I owe you one for calling me, you’re the best—Oh my _god_ , did you see that?”

Steve can see that Bucky is getting a little twitchy from all the commotion, so he holds out a hand for Bucky to help him up and offers, “Best two out of three?”

And just like that, Bucky’s attention is on Steve again and his shoulders settle and he reaches his metal hand out to haul Steve to his feet. The metal feels odd against Steve’s fingers, cold like metal should be but oddly warm as well, as if Bucky’s humanity is trying to assert itself over the machine that was forced on him. 

Steve wins the next round, but only narrowly. He’s still caught off guard by how evenly matched the two of them are now, each of them countering the other’s moves as quickly as each of them strikes. When Bucky hits the ground, landing with a soft grunt, another collective cheer rises from the others and Steve can hear them making bets on who’s going to win the last round. 

“You sure you’re not getting soft on me?” Steve teases as he helps Bucky up. 

Bucky doesn’t respond but his eyes are almost bright and playful, almost mischievous like Bucky used to get when they were two kids roughhousing in the middle of their living room. He rolls his left shoulder back and clenches and unclenches his hand in preparation for their final match, the rhythmic clinking of the plates shifting into place reminding Steve that this is all very, very different. Because the Bucky that Steve knew was always strong, solid and toned from manual labor, but Bucky now is broader in the shoulders and every part of him has been trained to fight and he moves with the sort of fluid grace that Steve never remembered Bucky having when they were kids. And even now, even though this is all fun and games and it’s just light and friendly, nothing serious, Steve can feel the raw power that’s trapped in his skin. 

And it’s all good and well until, when Steve leans in for a quick jab, Bucky suddenly bowls over as if winded, expression suddenly pinched and tense. Steve freezes, abruptly concerned that he’s hurt Bucky, his mind flooded with memories of waking up huge and not knowing his own strength and pressing bruises into skin without even realizing it. And then Bucky’s weight shifts almost imperceptibly and his eyes angle up towards Steve’s face, sly and cunning, and Steve has about half a second to register that this is all a trick before Bucky lunges out and knocks him flat onto his back. 

Steve groans, knowing that he’s going to be feeling that for the rest of the day, “Shit.”

The room is dead silent until Steve lets out a vaguely pained laugh and cracks his eyes open to peer up at Bucky, who’s looking at him with what might pass as mild amusement. 

“Jerk,” Steve says, still laughing and remembering when he was sixteen and figured out that the only way to beat Bucky in a fight was to fake an asthma attack and get the drop on him. “That’s my move.”

The corner of Bucky’s mouth twitches in an expression that Steve thinks is trying to be a smile. He holds his hand out to help Steve up. 

Over by the rock wall, Natasha lets out a loud cheer and shouts, “Pay up, fellas! I told you Barnes was going to win.”

A general grumble arises from the guys and Clint asks something along the lines of “What do you know about him that you aren’t you telling us?” and Natasha just shrugs and collects her winnings, green eyes brilliant and mysterious as ever. 

Steve chuckles and shakes his head at them. He smiles earnestly at Bucky and claps a friendly hand on his shoulder. 

“It’s good to have you back, pal,” he says, and it’s softer, more private than anything else he’s said today. 

Bucky’s mouth shifts again into what passes for a smile from him these days and he mumbles, “Yeah” and Steve feels like his heart could burst out of his chest. 

\---

(There are bad memories too, of course, more than Bucky can count, more than the number of Steve memories that Bucky has found again, because it’s like he’s started to pry open the floodgates and everything, good and bad, is starting to pour through, and there’s seventy years of the bad and only twenty of the good, and more often than not, Bucky wakes in the middle of the night with the taste of metal in his mouth and a sharp pain in his left arm that shouldn’t be able to exist, because his left arm isn’t supposed to feel anymore, much less hurt, but Bucky remembers it, bit by bit and then all at once, rushing back to him, remembers the fall that crushed his arm from the elbow down and blood in the snow and the horrible, calm faces bringing a crude electric saw to hack off whatever was left and the excruciating pain of it all, so much so that when Bucky wakes up, vision still red around the edges, he can hear his own scream in his ears and feels like he’s dying all over again.

Bucky doesn’t remember every night, but when he does, it rattles him down to somewhere primal and still soft that HYDRA wasn’t quite able to touch, a place he didn’t discover until he tried to put himself back together and was allowed to feel again, to hurt, to think for himself, and when he does remember, Bucky limps out of bed clutching his stomach like he’s just been knifed and doesn’t wake Steve and disappears into the dark like he knows best, still a wounded animal at best, not the competent assassin he used to be, not the cocky boy that Steve remembers growing up with, not the soldier who ran alongside Steve into battle because as afraid as he was of dying in a field in the middle of Europe, he was more afraid of leaving Steve to fight on his own, and Bucky isn’t even sure what he _is_ anymore, because he doesn’t yet feel like a man again but he’s aching too much to be a machine and he doesn’t know what to do with himself because they don’t make instruction manuals for things like this and even if they did, Bucky’s fairly sure that his case is far more extreme than anyone ever planned for.)

\---

Steve wakes with a start, all of a sudden wide awake and alert. He’s not entirely sure what woke him, but his heart is pounding in his ears and every cell in his body knows that something is off, even if he doesn’t know what it is yet. Steve slowly sits up on his couch (he hasn’t wanted to intrude on Bucky’s space uninvited and Bucky hasn’t made any move to bridge the gap between them in the night, so Steve thinks it best to remain here until prompted to do otherwise). Steve’s bare feet touch the carpeted floor, and Steve slowly bends down to touch his fingertips to the edge of his shield, which he’s taken to storing beneath the couch. 

Bucky is standing on the opposite side of the room, muscles pulled taught. Steve can see the dull reflection off of what appears to be a steak knife in Bucky’s hand and Steve feels something tighten uncomfortably in his chest, like he’s young and small again and he’s run up too many stairs too fast. 

“Bucky,” Steve says gently, not pressing forward for fear of setting him off. “Bucky, it’s me, Steve.”

Bucky’s eyes are hard in the darkened room and don’t even seem to recognize Steve at all. “You’re my mission,” Bucky grits out and his voice is rough, almost feral, like Steve hasn’t heard in months. 

Steve’s heart slams in his chest, a sickening panic welling up in the pit of his stomach. “Please,” Steve says, trying to keep his voice as level and calm as possible. “Bucky, just—let’s just take a second, okay? I’m Steve; I’m your friend. Please, just put the knife down, Bucky.”

Bucky’s expression darkens, angry and wild. “I don’t know you,” he grits out, and it sounds more like a growl than anything else. 

Steve swallows nervously. “Yes,” Steve says softly, almost pleading because he doesn’t know what else to do. “Yes, you do. I’m your friend.”

“ _I don’t know you_ ,” Bucky shouts, sounding like his words taste like poison in his mouth. 

Bucky launches himself across the room with a snarl and Steve barely has time to pull out his shield from under the couch and shove it in between them before Bucky comes barreling into him, all untamed fury and blind instinct. Steve shoves him back, but Bucky just keeps coming at him, relentless and unyielding and wild like a hurricane, and it’s all Steve can do to defend himself without hurting Bucky because as much as he’d like to not die tonight, he doesn’t think he could live with himself if anything happened to his friend. 

Bucky manages to nick Steve on the shoulder before Steve is able to knock the knife out of his hands, but just because Bucky is disarmed doesn’t mean he’s any less dangerous, still throwing himself at Steve with reckless abandon, all of his usually carefully controlled strength spilling out messily in rough punches and kicks that throw Steve back so hard that when he lands on the coffee table, he can feel the heavy wood crack and break beneath his back. Bucky makes to grab Steve, and Steve just manages to knock his shield into Bucky’s side before Bucky has a chance to throw him around any more. Bucky slams into the wall, leaving behind a sizeable dent and cracked plaster, and it must hurt but he just shakes his arm out and comes back at Steve, roaring and trying to tear at Steve’s skin. 

Bucky’s fist makes contact with Steve’s face and Steve tastes the bitter, salt taste of blood in his mouth, and as Bucky draws back for another strike, Steve can see the desperation in his movements, the ragged edges of his fraying programming showing in the increasing sloppiness of his punches. It takes a moment or two, and Bucky manages to get in another couple solid hits before he cracks altogether, but Steve gradually manages to ease Bucky off of him, Bucky, who’s now distraught instead of just angry, terrified and lost and breathing hard, from exhaustion or panic or both. 

Suddenly, Steve’s door bangs open, and Clint and Natasha are bursting in with guns in their hands, trained and ready and wound up to fight if need be. They’re both dressed down to their pajamas and Clint has creases from bed sheets pressed into his cheek and Natasha has the worst bedhead Steve has ever seen on her, but their eyes are nothing short of alert and deadly serious.

“Cap, you okay?” Clint shouts at the same time that Natasha calls out, “Steve?”

Steve’s hand shoots out automatically to placate them. “We’re good,” Steve says, even as he feels blood trickling down his chin from where Bucky hit him. “We’re okay, guys.”

Natasha slowly lowers her gun and clicks the safety back on but doesn’t put it away. Clint is more wary but follows her lead after a moment’s consideration. Steve’s heart sinks at the thought that they were both too ready to shoot Bucky if they had to. Steve wonders if they planned for this. He’s not naïve enough to put too much faith in the ‘no’ column. 

“I’ve got this under control,” Steve says, measured and even, asking them to leave without asking. 

Natasha’s eyes flick to Bucky, her eyes sharp and perceptive and understanding something that Steve doesn’t know if he gets quite yet. Steve thinks he sees her shoulders sag a fraction of an inch, a strange sort of recognition passing across her face. 

Clint takes half a step forward and says, his voice heavy with concern, “Steve—”

Natasha stops Clint with a gentle hand on his arm. He turns his head to her, confused, and she shakes her head minutely, a certain look settling on her face that Steve can’t name, and Clint sighs and lets her lead him out of the room. Natasha gives Steve a knowing nod and retreats from the room, hand on Clint’s back, leaving Steve and Bucky to pick up the pieces like they need to, alone and privately. Like she knows that this isn’t something to be made into a scene. Like she knows that this sort of suffering shouldn’t have to be witnessed.

Steve lets out a breath when the door closes and surveys the destruction that is his room. There’s broken glass and plaster chips and splinters of wood everywhere, and his bed has been pushed off to the side of the room and the mattress is half turned over and there are books scattered everywhere from when Bucky slammed Steve into the bookshelf. Steve’s room looks like a tornado hit it and it’s still better than how Bucky looks right now, sitting in the middle of the room with tousled hair and horrified eyes and blood on his hands and running down his right arm and seeping through his pajamas pants from where the glass must’ve caught his skin. 

Steve goes to get the first aid kit from the bathroom and kicks some debris out of the way before sitting down next to Bucky to patch up his wounds. When Bucky moves his left arm out of the way so Steve can look at his legs, the metal makes an awful screeching sound, as if the parts are starting to grind on each other. Steve frowns when he sees the obvious dents and distortions from where the edge of his shield must’ve hit it. He wonders when the last time Bucky or anyone performed proper maintenance on the arm was. 

“We can have Tony take a look at that later,” Steve says in reference to Bucky’s arm. 

Bucky doesn’t respond. Steve patches Bucky up in silence, putting in stitches where he needs to and trying to ignore the way Bucky doesn’t even flinch when Steve pulls a couple slivers of glass out of one of his deeper cuts. When he’s finished with Bucky, Steve finally takes a good look at himself, wincing as he dabs at his own wounds with antiseptic. The cut on his shoulder will need a few stitches to hold it in place for the time being, but it’ll heal by the time it’s properly morning, and everything else consists more or less of just surface wounds. He cleans off as much as he can and then goes to the bathroom to wash off his face and rinse the taste of blood from his mouth. 

When he goes back out into his bedroom, Bucky still hasn’t moved. Steve sighs and heads over to him to help him up. 

“Come on,” Steve says gently, easing Bucky to his feet. “We can clean this up in the morning.”

Bucky follows him wordlessly and they end up settling in the shared living room because the living room overlooks the city and Steve knows that the open space soothes Bucky’s ragged nerves. Steve makes tea for both of them, some new, supposedly calming blend that Bruce has been working on, and the two of them sit in silence for a long time, Steve quietly sipping at his tea and Bucky staring through the steam rising from his mug. 

“I’m sorry,” Bucky says finally, hours later. He takes a sip of his tea. It’s probably gone stone cold by now. 

Steve sighs and wants to say that it’s not Bucky’s fault, because he could never blame Bucky for the things that he’s been through, because he could never see Bucky’s lashing out as anything more than HYDRA’s torture showing where the scars are. But he knows that all of that is probably the last thing that Bucky wants to hear. 

“I know,” Steve says, and that’ll have to do for now. “I know, Buck.”

\---

Hours later, after they’ve watched the sun rise over the city and Natasha has come in from her early morning run, Sam trailing a couple feet behind because they run together sometimes, and she’s given Steve a soft look that Steve returns with a weak smile, after all that, Steve takes Bucky down to Tony’s workshop, where Tony’s already tinkering away on those new toys he’s been promising everyone. Bruce is sitting a little off to the side, a mug of tea sitting next to him on a countertop as he scans the newspaper, reading out interesting tidbits to Tony. 

Tony looks up when Steve and Bucky walk in and he grins. Steve doesn’t comment on the way Tony’s eyes go dark and worried when he sees the angry skin where Steve and Bucky’s cuts are already starting to heal. Steve knows that everyone must know what happened by now, and he’s thankful that no one’s fussing over them, because he’s not entirely sure he could deal with that right now. 

“Steve!” Tony calls out, opting for cheerful instead of concerned. “Finally going to let me fix up that bike of yours?”

Steve tries to make his laugh sound light. “Not today,” he says. He gestures towards Bucky, “It’s his arm. It keeps making this sound. Thought you might know what to do about it.”

Tony nods and motions Bucky over without asking why Bucky’s arm is suddenly acting up so much. Bucky glances over at Steve before heading over as if asking for permission and Steve physically _aches_ , because it’s like Bucky’s not sure if it’s not safe for him to be around others anymore, like Bucky doesn’t know if _he’s_ safe. 

As Tony sits Bucky down and opens up his arm to look at all the moving pieces, Steve wanders over to Bruce, who’s folded up his newspaper and is now drinking his tea and looking thoughtfully at Bucky. 

“Hey,” Steve says, leaning against the counter. 

Bruce nods at Steve. “I heard you got into a minor scuffle last night,” he says. 

Steve snorts. “Yeah,” he says, trying not to think about the wreckage in his room and the tense look in Natasha and Clint’s eyes when they’d burst in expecting the worst. 

Bruce smiles at him. “Don’t worry,” he says knowingly. “They’ve got a contingency plan for me too. Though I’m fairly sure they plan on using something a little more formidable than a couple of pistols on me, if the need ever arises.”

Steve forces out a laugh, because he knows Bruce means for it to be reassuring, but mostly it just makes him uncomfortable. Bruce must sense this because he chuckles, soft and calm in a way that makes it easy to forget how dangerous he can be. 

“He’s really trying though, your boy,” Bruce says. “I mean, I know I don’t know him really at all, but he’s different now from when he first arrived. He’s warmer.”

Steve sighs. “I know,” he says, because he knows, he does, he can see it every day in the way Bucky feels less lost and unraveled. And then he gives Bruce a look, backtracking and hearing the first part of what Bruce said more clearly. “And why would you—he’s not _‘my boy’_.”

Something in Bruce’s face shifts and he says meaningfully, “Oh.”

Steve frowns. “What?” he asks, confused. 

Bruce shakes his head. “Sorry, I just—No, I shouldn’t say,” he says. “It’s not my place.”

Steve gives Bruce a look. “What is it?” he asks, with more force in his voice now. 

Bruce considers Steve for a long moment. “You have to realize,” Bruce says carefully, like he’s afraid he’s going to say the wrong thing. “Even though he doesn’t remember a whole lot of anything, every time Barnes sees you, it’s like you’re the center of the entire _universe_. And he doesn’t even _know_ you, Steve, at least not the way he would if he hadn’t been wiped so many times. What am I supposed to think?”

Steve blinks, _hard_. “I don’t—You— _What?_ ” he splutters, and Bruce just laughs. 

“You’re ninety-five years old,” Bruce says. “Haven’t you ever been in love before?”

“What do you—I— _Love?_ ” Steve stammers, caught off guard by this sudden turn in their conversation. He ignores the way his heart suddenly sounds too loud in his hears. “What are you talking about?”

Bruce just laughs some more and shakes his head again instead of answering Steve’s question. He takes a sip of his tea and says, more to himself than anything, “It’s like dealing with teenagers, sometimes, I swear.”

And Steve doesn’t really know what to say to that.

\---

(Tony talks as he tinkers with Bucky’s arm, muttering about how rushed the design was and how he could do so much better, be so much more careful, make a new arm so much more tailored to suit him than this impersonal tangle of wires and metal and dead nerve endings, and he talks and talks and talks as he works, all bursting passion and a sort of crazed, awkward sort of warmth, and all Bucky can think is _he is nothing like his father_ – his father, who Bucky remembers in snatches, the impassive look in his eye every time he saw Bucky, the polite detachment, so different from the quiet respect he’d held for Steve, Steve who was Bucky’s best friend and Bucky’s reason for being there and Howard’s reason for putting up with Bucky, even though Bucky was little more than a bundle of exposed nerves, raw and traumatized and unpredictable, and Bucky realizes now, or maybe he realized it before, he’s not quite sure, realizes that Howard had every reason not to trust him because who knew what HYDRA did to his head, because who knew how much those scientists had affected the way Bucky functioned and reacted and behaved, but that didn’t, _doesn’t_ lessen the sting of never quite meeting the high standards that Howard held for everyone and everything he worked with.

Tony talks and Bucky listens and thinks _he is nothing like his father_ and thinks _maybe I am nothing like_ my _father_ , and he’s not thinking about Brooklyn and his childhood and the father he hardly remembers but rather anonymous men in white lab coats, playing around with the contents of his head until he didn’t even recognize himself in the mirror anymore, the men who built him from the ground up into what they wanted, the men who shaped him into a knife with a man’s face, molded him into a killer the way a father raises a son.

Sparks fly out from where Tony works on his arm and Tony asks if Bucky wants him to work on a new arm because if he does he should say so soon because it’s going to take time to gather materials and plan and build because Tony refuses to settle for anything but the best for the people he cares about, and Bucky finds himself answering yes even though his arm is just fine as it is, worn and bruised and half-broken like the rest of him, finds himself agreeing to something new and shining, something different for the first time in so long, and when he looks over at Steve, at the brightness in his eyes that Bucky can’t figure out if he’s earned, he thinks that maybe he could try to remake himself in the image of something better, something that could someday be considered good, and maybe someday, Bucky won’t have to wonder if he deserves to be believed in so wholeheartedly.)

\---

Steve and Bucky don’t talk much for the rest of the day after the incident. They end up going back to Steve’s room after Tony fixes Bucky’s arm, and they pick up the broken pieces of Steve’s room in silence, hauling the broken coffee table out into the hallway to throw away later, sweeping up all the broken glass and debris. Steve spends too long picking up his books and trying to remember how he organized them before, and Bucky shoves the mattress and bed back into place, and when they’re done, several hours later, Bucky leaves and Steve can hear it in his step that he doesn’t want to be followed. 

Bucky leaves behind a sort of prickly unease in his wake, and Steve sighs, sitting down on the edge of his bed and scrubbing a hand over his face, trying to sort through the thoughts knocking around his head and figure out why things so suddenly feel so uncomfortable. Steve’s sure neither of them ever expected Bucky’s recovery to pass without Bucky lashing out in some way, but then again, Bucky has never retreated so fully back into the Winter Soldier that he hasn’t been able to stop himself from attacking Steve like this. So far, it’s only been little things that Steve’s noticed, the barely covered up edges of the programming HYDRA used to turn a man into a gun – the clench of Bucky’s fist and the sudden, sharp look in his eyes that Steve might miss if he wasn’t looking for it every day, the way Bucky grinds his teeth when Steve walks into a room, the half-steps that Bucky takes to position himself just that much more between Steve and the nearest exit. But so far, Bucky hasn’t actively tried to hurt Steve. It made it easier, Steve supposes, to believe in the near impossible notion that maybe Bucky’s recovery would continue without a hitch. But now that Steve thinks about it, he thinks that maybe both of them knew anyways that Bucky would snap like this sooner or later. Neither of them have ever been so naïve to think otherwise, but it’s one thing thinking it and another thing entirely to wake up to your best friend pressing a knife to your throat and the whole experience has rattled Steve in a way that he hasn’t ever felt before. 

Steve frowns at the empty spaces in his room where the coffee table and that lamp on his nightstand used to be, the large dents in the walls where bodies were thrown, the general disarray of his things even after tidying up. Pepper tells him later she’s already ordered a new furniture to replace the things that broke and that she’s arranged for workmen to come fix the walls the next day, and Steve is grateful when she doesn’t ask why these things are needed, just makes the calls and sorts everything out like she knows that Steve, for all his bravery and strength, is brittle in the aftermath of all of this. 

Her hand is light and gentle on his arm and she says, “He’s doing his best.”

And Steve says, “I know.” 

\---

When they do end up settling the uneasiness that’s hovered between them since the night Bucky attacked Steve, it’s without really talking about it at all. Steve comes back to the room one day after a workout, and Bucky’s sitting on the bed, staring at something on Steve’s laptop and fiddling with a pair of scissors. Tony installed Bucky’s new arm earlier that morning, and it’s gleaming and sleek and beautiful, a masterpiece even by Tony’s standards. The star on his shoulder is still there, but white now and encircled by blue and a thin ring of red, and Steve wonders if it was Tony’s idea or Bucky’s to have it resemble his shield so closely. 

“Hey,” Steve says as he walks over to peek at what Bucky’s looking at. 

Bucky looks up and the corner of his mouth twitches like it does when he’s trying to smile. He looks back at the laptop when he sees Steve eyeing it curiously, and Steve’s heart aches a little when he sees that Bucky has some old photos of him pulled up from some museum archive and they’re all of Bucky during the war, Bucky broken but holding himself together, his hair cut short and his uniform impeccable even in the face of almost certain death. Steve remembers the nightmares, the way Bucky used to wake up screaming, the way he continued to dress himself in that dark blue coat and sling his rifle over his shoulder every morning like he could never let go. 

“You used to cut my hair,” Bucky says now. The scissors clink across the metal plates of his left hand. His voice is quiet, like an apology.

Steve is suddenly reminded of those times Bucky would come back to the shitty apartment they shared as teenagers, lip split open and swollen from being punched for trying to pick up some guy’s girl or something equally stupid. And he’d be all loud protests and reckless bravado as Steve tried to lecture him and say that for a guy who spent half his time telling Steve to stay out of trouble, Bucky sure had a hard time following his own advice. But he’d always drop the act when Steve went to go patch him up, suddenly quiet and soft and he never said it back then because he was too busy trying to be enough for the two of them but when he smiled after Steve finished bandaging him up, it always felt like he was saying _I know I’m a dumbass, and I made you worry, and I’m sorry_.

“Do you want me to cut your hair?” Steve asks, and then he grins. “I have to admit, the long hair’s sort of growing on me.”

Bucky ducks his head. “Sam says change can be good,” he says quietly. Steve wonders if that’s where Bucky disappears to on the mornings that Steve can’t find him.

Steve’s smile falls into something softer, because here’s Bucky doing something for himself, here’s Bucky trying to say something. 

“Let me just shower really quick, okay?” Steve says, and Bucky nods, and that’s how they wind up on the sundeck twenty minutes later, Bucky sitting in a chair they dragged out there, towel around his shoulders, and Steve trying to remember how to cut hair properly because he hasn’t had to do this in a very long time. 

Bucky closes his eyes as Steve works, and Steve gets used to just the sound of Bucky breathing again, the quiet calm between them almost like it was before. And Steve knows that these days ‘before’ is a poor standard to hold them both to, because they’re both older now and they’ve both been through too much to pretend like things could ever return to the way things were, but sometimes he can’t help getting just a little bit nostalgic. Things were simpler back then, the thinks as he snips away at Bucky’s hair, and sure, his life is more comfortable now, but it was easier to know where he stood all those years ago. It was easier to know where _they_ stood. 

It takes a good thirty minutes or so for Steve to cut away most of Bucky’s hair and as he’s tidying it all up, making sure Bucky’s hair doesn’t look scraggly, Steve looks up and it’s like suddenly falling into his past. Bucky with his hair cut short again (not quite how it was before the war but close, close) looks unbearably young, somehow less weary and worn than he’d looked as the Winter Soldier even with the bags under his eyes that never seem to quite go away and the tired lines around his eyes that Steve doesn’t remember from before Bucky fell, and Steve suddenly feels like he’s a teenager again, like he still has asthma and his lungs are conspiring against him. 

Bucky opens his eyes when Steve pauses and frowns. He reaches up and touches the ends of his hair apprehensively, like he’s not sure what he’s going to find. Steve smiles at him and tries to remember how to breathe. 

“You look good,” he says softly. 

Bucky smiles, this awkward, shy thing that looks nothing and everything like the Bucky that Steve knows. 

“Thanks,” Bucky says, and Steve thinks he can hear it again – _I’m sorry. I trust you. I’m sorry._

\---

(“You clean up nice,” Natasha says to Bucky when she runs into him in the gym, and she touches a finger to his newly shaven jaw and she’s not afraid of him, not like the others who like him but keep looking at him like he’s always a hair away from imploding, and she smiles and Bucky remembers when her hair was still long and she was still young and rough around the edges, so much untrained strength in such a small person. 

“You better not hurt him,” Natasha says, like she’d warned the first day he arrived at the tower, like she expects Bucky to know exactly who she’s talking about, like she couldn’t possibly be talking about anyone else, and Bucky remembers putting a gun in her hands for the first time and learning what it meant to fear someone you were supposed to love. “He cares too much.”

“If you promise to do the same with yours,” Bucky hears himself saying, and sometimes, he feels like he’s two different people, one standing aside and watching the other move and speak and just _be_ like a real human being, and sometimes, it hits him like a punch in the gut, hearing the sound of his own voice doing something other than relaying mission reports or barking out sharp orders, the sound of himself doing something trivial and more than he’s been asked of, and sometimes, Bucky has to repeat to himself _I am real, I am real, I am real_ until he feels like he has a body again.

The gym door slides open and Natasha glances over her shoulder and then she smiles at Bucky and says, “I do my best,” and there’s something soft and gentle in her eyes that Bucky thinks he might’ve known, years ago, and Bucky thinks that maybe that’s the most that’s they’re ever going to be able to offer, trained killers like them, but she’s younger than him, he thinks, and she’s got much fewer years of bloodshed on her hands, and Bucky wonders, as he watches her walk over to Clint and steady his precarious soul with a light hand to the crook of his arm, grounding him like an anchor, Bucky wonders if he could ever discover enough of himself to be so sure.)

\---

Talk of clearing Bucky for active duty starts up some weeks later, just as they’re getting wind of trouble in the form of some scientist on the fringes of the city trying to synthesize a new class of chemical weapons. Bucky’s been doing well lately, and his regressions back into his old programming have become fewer and he’s gone longer without slipping up. Steve has learned that Bucky has taken to meeting with Sam regularly, spends hours trying to untangle the mess that HYRDA left behind, and Sam says that Bucky’s getting better, that he’s remembering more, that he’s putting the pieces together even though he doesn’t much like to talk about it. Steve almost wants to ask Bucky about it, because Steve’s been there with Bucky since the beginning, but he supposes it’s not his place to ask and hopes that if Bucky wants to talk to Steve about something, he will. 

It’s a Sunday when the call comes in. 

Sundays are lazy days at Avengers Tower, and everyone sort of does their own thing to relax and they all sort of take it as a day to just _be_ without worrying about if the world is going to cave in sometime in the next thirty minutes. Steve likes to spend his time sketching out on the sundeck or wandering around the neighborhood to find a nice, quiet coffee shop to sit in and catch up on some reading. Clint and Natasha like to go out and pretend like they’re anything close to a normal couple and do silly things that couples do, like catching a movie or having picnics in Central Park or, on rare occasions, going antiquing (Clint always seems to come back with an armful of vaguely interesting things that no one really needs, though, so they don’t tend to do this that often). Sam and Pepper sometimes exchange recipes, and Tony keeps promising that one of these days, they’re all going to take a group trip out to Coney Island so Steve can relive his youth. Bruce mostly keeps to himself, because it gets to be a bit much at times, living with so many people with such big personalities, all shouting over one another, and Thor splits his time between slowly but steadily working his way through Tony’s entire movie collection and going out with Jane. Steve doesn’t see Bucky much on Sundays, but sometimes they run into each other when Steve goes outside to draw the New York skyline and sometimes Bucky sits with him. 

It’s a Sunday when the call comes, and thankfully, everyone is within Avengers Tower or at least close enough that they all manage to suit up and head out within ten minutes. Steve almost worries that Bucky will get caught up in all the commotion and that it’ll make him anxious, since this is the first time they’ve had to respond to some sort of disaster as a team since Bucky got here. Up until this point, they’ve just been sending out Tony or Clint and Natasha or Sam, on occasion, to take care of the small threats, because there didn’t seem to be any point in dragging more people into it and they’d all wanted to maintain some level of stability and calm within the Tower for Bucky. 

Pepper calls just as Steve’s getting into Quinjet with Natasha and Clint. Her voice is soft and calm when she speaks, and Steve suspects that Bucky is nearby, if not within earshot, and she doesn’t want to alarm him. 

“I’ve got him,” she tells Steve. “We’re baking right now. That should give you at least an hour or so to get back.”

“Thank you,” Steve breathes, because he’s worried what could happen if Bucky got too worked up about this, if he snapped when Steve isn’t there to draw him back. Steve wonders briefly if there will ever come a day when he’ll let himself stop worrying. “Thank you, Pepper. You’re amazing.”

Pepper laughs quietly, and Steve can hear that there’s something strained in her voice, like she’s worried too. “Be safe,” she says. “Please.”

“I’ll do my best,” Steve says, and hangs up, because they’re taking off now and they’re headed out to where the threat’s localized.

Natasha switches on their secure communications line, and they spend the flight hashing out a plan, debating the merits of trying to get into the complex where they’re headed unnoticed versus just going for a direct assault, and as Steve prepares to jump out of the jet moments before they arrive at the complex, he just hopes that everything goes to plan, because he doesn’t even want to think about what Bucky might do if something went wrong. Steve remembers the dark look in Bucky’s eyes from when they were kids and Steve had more talk and fight in him than was good for him, and everything about Bucky now is so much _more_ than what Steve remembers, and Steve would very much not like to have to find out what shape that part of Bucky settled into in the aftermath of everything that HYDRA did to him. 

\---

Things very much do _not_ go according to plan. 

When they find the rogue scientist who’s in charge of the complex and currently developing chemical weapons that could take out entire city blocks at a time, he’s more prepared than any of them suspected, and while they do end up catching the guy and stopping the self-destruct mechanism in his complex from going off, but not before suffering some nasty cuts and bruises. And Steve, who runs headfirst into the control room to deactivate the self-destruct while the others track down the scientist and take out his frankly impressive security force, somehow manages to get himself caught up in a trap that the scientist was clever enough to set before trying to make a run for it. He gets the side of his torso doused in some sort of corrosive substance, which burns like hell and all but knocks him off his feet but thankfully, he’d had his shield raised up over his head when he crashed in, so his head and neck are largely unharmed. 

“Shit,” Natasha says when she bursts in some moments later. Her posture is tense and concerned and her eyes keep flicking back and forth between Steve and the control panel that Steve hasn’t been able to start to crack into thanks to the trap. “Fuck, Steve. Are you—?”

“I’m fine,” Steve grits out, teeth clenched against the pain. He gestures towards the ticking clock on the control panel. “Deactivate it.” 

Natasha hesitates, just a touch, before she nods curtly and goes to hack into his system, her fingers moving with a certain urgency that she doesn’t often show. Steve groans in pain and clutches his side, and he’s bleeding and he can feel it soaking through his suit, and he doesn’t even want to think about the tissue damage he’s suffering, but they can all worry about him after they know that this entire complex isn’t going to blow them all to bits. It feels like forever before the console makes a soft beeping sound and the countdown flashes once and then blinks off, and then Natasha is slinging Steve’s shield over her shoulder and hoisting Steve to his feet, half carrying, half dragging him out of the room, her tiny frame sagging a little under his weight but supporting him nonetheless. 

“You’re going to be okay, Steve, do you hear me?” Natasha keeps muttering as she uses all of her strength to get them both to the Quinjet. “Just hang on. I’ve got you, I swear.”

And Steve doesn’t doubt that she would go to the ends of the earth to make sure that he gets out of this okay, not now, not after they’ve been through so much together, and he’s never needed her to say it out loud, but he appreciates the gesture anyways and mostly focuses on trying to keep himself upright for long enough to make it to the jet. Clint’s eyes go wide when he sees the pair of them, but Natasha waves her hand and says sharply, “ _Go_ ” and he swallows the concern surfacing on his face and gets in position to fly them all home. If Clint flies as fast as he can, they can be back at Avengers Tower in under ten minutes. 

“You need to take this off,” Natasha says, helping Steve unzip his suit so she can peel the damaged material away from his body. She pulls a pair of extra sweatpants out of the emergency kit in the jet and holds them out for Steve. “Change into these. I’m getting some water to rinse out that burn.”

And Steve does what she says even though it hurts to move because he knows that she’s right, that wearing his chemical-soaked uniform any longer is not going to help anyone, and Natasha’s back in a moment with a bottle of water in one hand and she moves Steve onto his side before pouring water over his wounds, trying to wash away as much of the chemical as possible to minimize tissue damage. 

From the cockpit, Steve hears Clint filling the others in and asking them to clean things up without them because they’ve got a medical emergency that can’t wait. And then Clint calls medical back at Avengers Tower to inform them that Steve’s going to need immediate attention when they get back (only five minutes now), and his words are quick and efficient and urgent like they only get when he’s anxious. 

Natasha does her best flushing out the chemicals from Steve’s wound with what they have on board and it’s not much but it’s enough to contain the damage until Steve gets proper medical care. 

“Pepper,” Natasha says into her earpiece. Her voice is quiet and tense. “Clint and I are coming back with Steve. He’s hurt. I’m going to need you to keep Barnes busy for as long as you can. He doesn’t need to see this.” There’s a pause when Pepper must be speaking, and then Natasha’s posture relaxes, if only minutely, and she says, “Thanks. Last time he saw someone he cared about hurt, he almost killed three men before anyone stopped him.”

She hangs up and focuses on cleaning Steve’s wound again, trying to stop up the bleeding. 

“It was you, wasn’t it?” Steve asks, trying to keep his voice as level as possible through the pain. “Who Bucky saw, I mean.”

It’s not a question, not really, because he can almost see the answer written in the hard lines of her face, and she’s let enough slip at this point for Steve to put the pieces together and know that at some point in their history together, Bucky and Natasha were close. Natasha turns her eyes to Steve’s and she smiles, a soft, slight thing that almost looks sad. 

“Yeah,” she says. And for a moment, Steve thinks that’s all she’s going to say, and then she starts talking again, and Steve half suspects it’s to keep him distracted from the huge gaping wound on his side. “They found us. Together, I mean. We thought we were being so clever, sneaking around, but I guess we should’ve known better. They tortured me. Didn’t leave behind any physical evidence, of course; they were better than that. At that point, they knew their way around my head better than I did; all they had to do was poke around a little bit and before long, I was begging for death.” Natasha pauses for a moment and then continues, quieter now, “They made him watch. Said they wouldn’t stop until he confessed to his sins, never mind that they’d caught us red-handed. He nearly put three guys in the ground before they managed to sedate him.” She smiles a little at Steve, but it’s entirely humorless. “After that, they started to wipe him after every mission and put him on ice when they weren’t using him.”

Steve frowns and wants to say something like _I’m sorry_ , but that doesn’t seem to be enough, because Natasha hardly ever talks about her past, but every time she does, it’s like a punch in the gut. Natasha glances away and fusses with Steve’s burn again. 

“I only knew him for a short time,” she murmurs as she tapes a rudimentary bandage over his wound so he won’t bleed all over the place, and Steve can feel the slight bump when Clint lands the Quinjet. “I don’t even want to think about what he’d do if he saw you like this, what with your history and all.”

And the way Natasha says it reminds him of that morning, weeks ago now, when Bruce had looked at him with eyes that knew too much and asked _Haven’t you ever been in love before?_ It makes something vaguely uncomfortable clench in the pit of his stomach that he would probably pay more attention to if he weren’t so badly injured. 

\---

It takes both Natasha and Clint supporting his weight to get him to medical, where the staff is already prepared to take them in. As soon as he enters the medical ward, several nurses and doctors are fussing over him, cleaning out his wound and inserting an IV line in his arm to drip fluids back into his system, and when they’ve got the worst of Steve’s injury contained, they start fussing over Natasha and Clint as well, picking gravel and debris out of their cuts and disinfecting and stitching up what needs to be stitched up. The medical crew is just pressing sterile bandages to his side when the door suddenly bursts open and Steve’s heart just about falls out of his chest. 

Bucky is standing in the doorway, hard-eyed and furious, Pepper three steps behind him, expression pinched and worried and apologetic as she looks frantically back and forth between Steve and Bucky. Steve feels his breath catch in his throat as Bucky marches over to him and shoves him, hard. The nurses attending to his wound all look startled and make moves as if to keep Bucky away, but Steve just holds his arm out to keep them back, not wanting anyone else to get the brunt of Bucky’s anger and violence. 

“What the _fuck_ ,” Bucky yells at him, his words coming out in a harsh growl. Steve doesn’t think he’s ever seen Bucky this angry before. 

“Bucky, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you we had a mission; I just—” Steve starts but Bucky cuts him off. 

“No, Steve,” Bucky shouts, spots of color in his cheeks as he jabs an accusatory finger at Steve. “Don’t you dare try to rationalize this. What the hell were you thinking, keeping something like this from me? _Who the hell to you think I am?_ ”

Steve blinks. “I, um, I didn’t—”

“You didn’t what? You didn’t want to stress me out? You didn’t want to trigger me?” Bucky snaps, spitting out the words like they’re poison. “That’s _bullshit_ , Steve, and you know it. You don’t get to decide what’s best for me. You don’t get to assume _anything_ about my mental state, and you sure as _hell_ don’t get to decide what’s good for me.”

Steve’s heart thuds in his chest so loudly that he barely hears Bucky’s next words over the rush in his ears, overwhelmed and distressed and so, so guilty that he’s been jumping to conclusions so much about Bucky lately (because Bucky now is not Bucky before and _god_ , how could he have been so stupid, how could he have been so arrogant to think that he could possibly know Bucky better than Bucky knows himself?).

“Do you know what would be good for me?” Bucky hisses, his voice chillingly soft and dangerous. “It would be _good_ for me if people stopped fucking _hiding_ things from me like they have the past _seventy years_. It would be _good_ for me if people started treating me like a fucking _human being_ instead of some sort of _time bomb_.”

Bucky’s voice rises until he’s screaming at Steve again, louder than Steve has ever heard from him, louder even than when Steve was a teenager and skinny and too much fight and sticking his nose everywhere he wasn’t supposed to, and Steve feels it in his gut like he’s been punched, his breaths coming up ragged and torturous in his throat. 

“Bucky,” Steve says, and his voice is shaking and he doesn’t care because he’s been so dumb and blind and he wants to make things right. “Bucky, I wasn’t—I didn’t mean—”

“ _Fuck you_ ,” Bucky bites out, and he’s not shouting anymore, but his voice is so sharp that Steve jerks back like he’s been stung. 

Bucky makes a sort of growling sound under his breath, and his eyebrows are pinched together low over his eyes, sharp and accusatory as he turns on his heel to storm out. 

“You can relax,” he snaps at Natasha as he walks by her, and her fingers twitch where they’re resting on her guns. “I’m not going to fucking kill anyone.”

And then he’s gone, and the doors to the medical ward slide shut softly, leaving an eerie, uncomfortable silence behind where Bucky’s voice used to be. Steve can feel everyone’s eyes on him, and he imagines that he probably looks as shattered as he feels, but he can’t bring himself to care, because he’s just gone and done the worst thing he possibly could, the thing he’d promised himself he wouldn’t let happen anymore. He was stupid and callous and thought he could push his way through this with little more than the idea that he should be doing _something_ , and he forgot that this wasn’t ever supposed to be about what _he_ did at all. This was supposed to be about Bucky, and Steve was selfish and made it about himself instead, and when Pepper ventures quietly, “Steve?” and her voice is gentle and worried like she’s trying to find the right tone to alleviate the guilt rising in his chest, Steve feels it like ice under his skin and hates everything he’s done. 

\---

(Bucky is angry and aching and he wants to tear the whole building down because he’s so distraught and he feels like his heart is trying to crash its way out of his chest and he doesn’t know how to deal with this, because it’s been so long since he’s felt this way, so long since he’s known the true terror of almost losing something that he loves, again and again and again, because he thinks he remembers this feeling, vaguely, only it’s never been this intense, only _nothing_ that Bucky remembers has ever been as intense as it is now, because he thinks that probably whatever HYDRA did to him makes everything come back stronger than it was when they found him, feelings included, and Bucky’s so fucking furious that he’s shaking all over and he wants to rip at his hair only he forgets that he doesn’t have much hair to grab at anymore because he cut it all off weeks ago. 

And the worst part of it all, the worst part is that he gets it, a little bit, why Steve did it, because Bucky’s reminded of when he was in his early twenties and the letter came in the mail and he didn’t tell Steve until the night before that he was going off to war, didn’t even ever tell him that he was drafted, because Steve always had a heart too big for his own good and he cared so much about Bucky but maybe not enough and maybe not in the right ways, and Bucky couldn’t stand the way Steve’s eyebrows slanted into a sad smile, couldn’t bear the way it made him feel like his lungs had been ripped out of his body, and Bucky’s still angry and still hurt and doesn’t feel like he has a right to be either because hasn’t he done the same thing a thousand times trying to protect _Steve_ because steve was always a little too optimistic and a little too hopeful and, at least before the war and all the death and destruction, believed a little too much in the goodness of human beings.

It’s not until many hours later, as he’s getting ready for bed, that Bucky realizes that this is the first truly human thing he’s violently experienced in a very, very long time, all the messiness and confusion and the way he’s feeling too many things at once and none of it makes sense, and Bucky tries to be proud of himself, but it hurts, caring so much – _loving_ so much, he realizes, scared down to his bones because he’s not even sure if people like him should be allowed to love – and Bucky doesn’t know what to do.)

\---

Sam comes to visit Steve in the medical ward when the rest of the team comes back from the mission, and while Natasha and Clint have both been released with instructions to rest and take it easy so they won’t rip out their stitches, they’re holding Steve for a little while longer since his injuries are more severe. He keeps trying to tell them that he’s fine, really, and with his enhanced healing, this won’t be more than a patch of angry skin in the morning, but they won’t let him go. Sam comes in and finds Steve miserable and staring at the wall and refusing to talk to anyone. 

“Hey,” Sam says, pulling up a chair and sitting down next to Steve’s cot. It’s an oddly familiar sight, and Steve supposes he’d feel comforted if he weren’t so distressed. 

Sam’s quiet for a long moment before he sighs, something like sympathy or encouragement slipping out in a soft hum. 

“You did nothing wrong, Steve,” he says softly, soothing in that tone of his that holds no judgment and no reproach and makes Steve want to be better than he is. 

“I did everything wrong,” Steve mumbles, frowning at his hands. “I shouldn’t have treated him like that. I should’ve known not to keep things from him.”

Sam smiles and reaches out to place a reassuring hand on Steve’s arm. “We don’t always know what’s going to work when it comes to things like this,” he says gently. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my own experience and working with other vets, it’s that every case is different. Recovery doesn’t work the same way for everyone. It’s okay to make mistakes because there’s no way to know all of the variables all of the time.”

Steve furrows his eyebrows, still not quite meeting Sam’s eyes. “He’s my best friend, Sam,” he says, the weight of it heavy on his tongue. “It’s different. I should’ve known.”

Sam sighs and leans his elbows on the edge of Steve’s cot. “Look,” Sam says with the sort of patience that Steve has never been able to master. “From what I’ve seen, he’s getting a lot better, and this display here, this is a sign of improvement too. When he first came here, he was so withdrawn he never said or did a single thing when something upset him. Now he’s smiling and laughing, and yes, lashing out when he’s angry. But I think this is good. I think this means he’s less afraid of us, which means his conditioning to be quiet and submissive must be wearing off. This is all part of him coming back, and as he discovers more of himself, all of him is going to return, not just the happy parts, but the broken parts too. And you’re going to have to be okay with that.”

Steve doesn’t respond because he doesn’t trust himself to speak, afraid of what he might say, afraid of the way his voice might shake, because it’s not just about this one thing, not really, and if Steve ever really thinks about it, it’s never been just been about this, the way he’s been shielding Bucky from the whole world like it’s the only thing he can do. The thing is, Steve has been trying to hold Bucky in this bubble because he’s terrified of what the world will do to him, because Steve can’t bear thinking about what would happen if the world chewed Bucky up and spat him back out again, for the third time in his life. Steve doesn’t think either of them could survive that, and he’s been called brave all his life, but he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to be courageous about this. 

“He’ll come around,” Sam says. “You’ll see. He cares a lot about you, Steve. You’re his best friend too.”

Steve presses his lips together and frowns at nothing in particular, thinking, _Maybe._

\---

It’s evening by the time Steve’s officially released from medical, and he has to make himself eat dinner even though he doesn’t feel hungry because he needs to keep up with his metabolism. Bucky’s not in the kitchen with everyone else, and Steve eats faster than is strictly advisable and doesn’t talk to anyone. The whole time, Natasha keeps shooting him concerned glances and murmuring into Pepper’s ear and punching Clint in the arm when he whispers something to her, and Sam tries to smile encouragingly, and Steve feels like he’s been gutted. Pepper’s cooking is always delicious, but Steve doesn’t remember tasting any of it and he goes back to his room feeling empty despite having eaten three plates of food. 

When he walks into his room, he’s surprised to find Bucky sitting on his bed, dressed in sweat pants and one of Steve’s old shirts that he accidentally spilled bleach on months ago, reading a book like it’s any ordinary night and they didn’t have one of the most spectacular screaming matches of their lives that afternoon. Bucky doesn’t look up when Steve walks in, but he doesn’t make any move to leave, so Steve takes that as a good sign and goes to change into something to sleep in. Bucky’s still reading when Steve has finished going through the motions of getting ready for bed, though Steve is almost positive that he hasn’t read a single word since Steve walked in, and even though Bucky’s not being actively hostile, Steve doesn’t want to push his luck and leaves a generous distance between them as he heads for the couch like always. 

“Don’t be fucking ridiculous,” Bucky says suddenly, sharper than Steve’s used to but something a little like when Steve was smaller and used to try to hide his colds. “You’re injured. You’re not sleeping on the couch.”

Steve hesitates, and Bucky doesn’t move, doesn’t even look up, but there’s nothing passive about him. Steve has no doubt that Bucky would drag him back kicking and screaming if Steve even tried to go to the couch, so he slips gingerly into the bed next to Bucky and tries not to feel uncomfortable.

“Just like when we were kids, huh? Pushing the couch cushions together?” Steve says as lightly as he can to break the tension that Bucky radiates off of him, but it comes out sounding forced and stilted. 

Bucky doesn’t meet his eyes as he sets his book aside and flicks the light off. “Go to sleep, Steve,” he says, something heavy and almost resigned in his voice like Steve is still sixteen and dumb and throwing himself into fights he can’t win because his heart is too big for his body. 

Bucky is still and tense beside him, nothing like the warm, smirking man Steve remembers from before the war or the solid, constant comfort during, and Steve thinks that maybe he gets what Sam was trying to say earlier, how all of Bucky is going to come back, even the parts Steve doesn’t know yet, even the parts ripped apart by HYDRA and tacked back together with little more than the determination to become whole again, and Steve just hopes that Bucky keeps him around long enough for him to learn all the new ways Bucky works.

\---

Steve wakes in the morning to an empty bed and the vague smell of a recent shower drifting out from the bathroom. His entire suite is deserted and when he ventures out to the common space to see if maybe Bucky went out to get breakfast, Bucky’s nowhere to be found. No one really sees him all day, or if they do, they don’t tell Steve, and the next time Steve sees him, it’s nighttime and he’s returning to his room to maybe watch a little TV and sleep, and there Bucky is, settled on Steve’s bed like he never left. He doesn’t look up and doesn’t really even acknowledge Steve’s presence, but he doesn’t run either, even when Steve, testing, slips into bed next to him. He just turns the light off wordlessly and yanks the comforter up to his chin and rolls away so that his back is facing Steve, and Steve doesn’t know what to make of it. Because here’s Bucky, on one hand effectively ignoring Steve and yet still willingly coming back to share space with him every night even though Steve’s certain there are a plethora of extra rooms that Bucky could use if he wanted to. 

“Perhaps,” Thor proposes one day as Steve eats his fifth bowl of sugary cereal, upset with himself and with Bucky and not sure how else to deal with it other than eating an obscene amount of junk food. “Perhaps he is not simply angry, but rather, he feels wounded.”

Steve raises his eyebrows at Thor and pauses, spoon halfway to his mouth, and frowns. “What do you mean?” he asks, skeptical, because he doesn’t quite understand where this is going. 

“I have seen this behavior before,” Thor says, smiling and kind and calm, the picture of peace even though Steve knows he has war in his bones just like the rest of them. “Warriors go off to fight in battles and the loved ones they leave behind can feel hurt that they have chosen the battle over their wives and husbands and children. The hurt comes out as anger because it is often easier to process and express than something as complex as betrayal or abandonment.”

Steve frowns at the vaguely purple milk in the bowl in front of him, wondering if this is really what he’s done without even realizing it, thinking about all the times he ran off to throw himself into fights when he was younger, thinking about all the times he went where Bucky couldn’t follow. Steve wonders if this means that he’s a bad friend. 

“This does not mean that you are selfish, Steve,” Thor says gently like he knows what Steve is thinking. “Your intentions were kind. You wanted to protect him. But we must understand when people do not want or need to be protected.”

Steve’s cereal is soggy now, and Steve is suddenly hyperaware of how incredibly young he must be to Thor, of how much he’s seen that Steve can’t even imagine, and Steve wonders if he seems foolish in comparison, struggling with things that Thor has already learned. But Thor smiles and there’s not judgment or contempt about it, just kindness and encouragement, and Steve wants to deserve of that kind of trust, he really does, but after his recent actions, he’s not sure if he can consider himself worthy of it. 

“You are a good friend,” Thor insists. “Barnes is lucky to have you. But he is waiting for you to recognize how you have hurt him.”

And Steve wants to believe Thor, wants to be able to accept this kind of advice without wondering if Thor’s somehow delusional or misguided about this whole thing, but all Steve can manage is a weak, “Thanks.”

\---

It takes Steve all day to decide that maybe the best way to deal with this is head-on and just acknowledge his mistake and apologize, because Bucky’s been avoiding Steve’s sideways attempts to bring their usual ease back into their relationship and this is the only idea Steve has left. When Steve walks into his room that night, Bucky is, predictably, already there and he’s just finishing with brushing his teeth when Steve walks in. Steve goes to lean on the bathroom doorframe, carefully leaving space between them so Bucky won’t feel ambushed. 

“Hey,” Steve says quietly. 

Bucky doesn’t look at Steve and silently rinses off his toothbrush. Steve sighs and presses on. 

“Look, I know I shouldn’t have kept things from you,” Steve says slowly, measuring out his words for fear of saying the wrong thing. “I’m sorry. It was a shitty thing to do, and I should’ve thought it through more carefully, and it was selfish of me.”

“You’re damn right it was,” Bucky mutters under his breath, and it’s the first time Bucky has acknowledged this odd rift between them directly, and his voice is bitter and harsh and Steve can’t even blame him. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was going out on a mission,” Steve says, because he doesn’t know what else to do except for keep saying it until Bucky believes him. “I’ll tell you next time, I swear.”

Bucky laughs and it’s this awful, broken thing that sounds like it’s being dragged out of his throat, and when he turns around, his expression is such a devastating mix of lost and hopeless and heartbroken that Steve doesn’t know what to do. 

“Do you really think that’s all this is about?” Bucky asks, and his voice is shaking and all Steve wants to do is make it go away but he’s not sure he knows how. 

Steve blinks. “What do you—?”

Bucky smiles then, and it’s sad, like he’s given up, and he says, “Steve, it’s not just this one time, don’t you get it? You’re just—Even when I first met you, you were seven years old and already in over your head and you haven’t ever stopped, and Jesus, Steve, do you know how hard it is to care about someone like that?”

Steve crosses his arms across his chest and sighs. “It’s different now, Bucky,” he says gently, because it is, because he’s not sickly anymore and he weighs more than a hundred pounds soaking wet and more than that, he knows what he’s doing when he goes off seeking trouble because he’s been trained and he’s got a team at his back and he’s probably safer than ever. “I’m not a kid anymore. I take care of myself just fine. It’s different.”

Bucky scoffs and his eyes are angry again, angry and something else now that Steve’s looking for it, now that it’s been pointed out to him, and Bucky looks—He looks so pained, like he’s been keeping this bottled up for so long that it’s started to eat away at him from the inside out, and Steve hates himself for doing this to Bucky and wishes he could take it all back, whatever _it_ is. 

“It’s not different, Steve,” Bucky says fiercely. “The only difference is that when you got bigger, so did the bullies you started fighting, and there was even less that could stop you.”

Steve frowns. “We fought the same bullies,” he points out, because this is unfair, because Bucky can’t just throw this in his face like he wasn’t there too. “We fought in the war together. You were right by my side.”

Bucky laughs, sharp and short. “I was _drafted_ , Steve; you have to know that by now,” he says, voice rising in volume as he goes on. “I didn’t want to be there. I _never_ wanted to be there. But you were there, and I—When you got me back from Austria, Colonel Philips, he offered me honorable discharge, and I wanted to say yes, _god_ I wanted to say yes, I wanted to go _home_ , but I said no. I said no, Steve, and it was because of you, because I live in fear of the day you run off and don’t come back because I couldn’t pull you out.”

Bucky’s words are buzzing in Steve’s ears, knocking around his head like too much loose change, and he can’t make sense of it all, because it feels like Bucky is trying to say something, something important, but he’s not quite daring to say it and Steve can’t figure it out, and he didn’t _know_. He didn’t know that Bucky could’ve gone home. He didn’t know that Bucky could’ve had a normal life without decades of suffering. He didn’t know and it’s all he can think about and he asks quietly:

“Why didn’t you go home? Why did you stay?”

The look Bucky gives Steve is unlike anything Steve has ever seen before, tortured and anguished and desperate, maybe because he’s held onto this for so long, maybe because everything about him is too sharp these days, and he shouts, “Because I _hated_ the war, Steve, but I loved _you_.”

As soon as the words leave Bucky’s mouth, Steve sees Bucky’s posture stiffen and his expression shutter off, like this was something he was never meant to say, like this is something secret and forbidden, and Steve feels his pulse slam wildly under his skin, frozen in place himself at the sheer force of Bucky’s sudden admission, entirely unprepared to have something so raw and open thrown in his face like this.

\---

(Because he doesn’t know what else to do, Bucky runs, because this is the strongest instinct he has left in him, because even before being ripped apart and put back together over and over and turned into the darkest shadow of himself, Bucky was always a coward, running from war only to be dragged in, praying for death only to be pulled out and thrown back into battle, and all this time, the only thing that’s ever made him want to be brave is Steve, because Steve is brave and Steve is kind and he’s a better person than Bucky has ever been, than Bucky could ever hope to be, even when Steve does dumb things like running off to fight in a war, like running off without telling Bucky, because Steve cares, he cares _so much_ , and it hurts to think about it, because Bucky’s always found it hard to care about anyone but himself, and Steve’s the only one who’s wanted to make him even _try_.

Bucky’s never been a good person like Steve, not really, not down at his core, because if being turned into a weapon told him anything, it told him that this thing, this darkness was always inside of him, because the serums that make soldiers indestructible also make them more themselves and their own instincts than they’ve ever been, and Bucky knows, he _remembers_ , the way the cold seemed to creep in on him a little more each day he was in the trenches, remembers the way that the war slowly but surely brought out the hate in him, and in the midst of all of that, the only good thing he ever did was be there when Steve needed him, protected him with a rifle slung over his shoulder and the scent of gunpowder singed into his clothes, laughed and grinned instead of giving into the ache in his chest when Steve found a woman who finally saw him for just him, woke up each day to put on a brave face because this was what Steve needed, because this was the most goodness he had to offer the world. 

And the thing is, Bucky’s gotten so good at doing the thing he’s supposed to do, being the best friend, being supportive, being there and smiling even when he’s breaking apart inside that he’s almost been able to forget about the love he keeps tucked away in his chest, boxed up and shoved out of the way because it’s never been anything but inconvenient, and Bucky’s been good, he’s been so good, going out of his way to find other people to date, respecting when Steve found someone for himself, smiling the whole way, because he’s been a _good friend_ , because this is what friends _do_ , and Steve was never supposed to know about the way that Bucky’s always ached a little too much looking at Steve, because Steve is too kind and he’d try to be too noble about it and Bucky doesn’t ever want to put him in the situation where Steve would feel obligated to anything because Bucky’s his best friend, because Bucky is too afraid of how sympathy would look in Steve’s eyes when he says _Oh Bucky, I’m sorry but I don’t feel the same_ , except now he’s gone and fucked up the only good thing he’s ever managed in his life, and he’s the worst, he’s the absolute fucking _worst_ , why can’t he do anything right?)

\---

The air outside is cold when Steve finally finds Bucky, crouched in the far corner of the sundeck like he’s trying to make himself so small that he vanishes altogether. He’s staring out at the city below like he wants to lose himself in it, and when Steve cautiously approaches, he notices Bucky lift a cigarette to his mouth. Bucky doesn’t flinch when Steve sits down next to him, leaning his back against the rail that Bucky is facing, but there’s something impassive in his expression that settles down like a door pulling shut and Steve can’t figure out what the right thing to do is.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” Steve says just to say something, hoping that if he talks for long enough he can stumble upon the right way to bridge the distance suddenly shoved between them. 

Bucky shrugs. “I don’t,” he says, frowning at the cigarette perched between his fingers. There’s a beat, and then, “Couldn’t. You have asthma—Or, _had_ , I guess.”

A silence engulfs them like the cloud of smoke that Bucky exhales, and Steve leans his head back against the railing, staring up at the dark sky. Bucky is a heavy presence next to him, quiet and still, metal arm shining where the light from the moon and the surrounding buildings hit it. Steve thinks back to when they were kids and he never once saw Bucky frown, and he thinks about the war and how sometimes he’d catch Bucky staring off into darkness around them like he wanted it to swallow him whole, and Steve wonders if he’s been right thinking that HYDRA stole away Bucky’s brightness, wonders if the war and fighting and Steve himself are to blame instead. 

“You should’ve told me,” Steve says quietly, because he can’t think of a way around it. 

Bucky snorts and ducks his chin, the ends of his hair where it’s starting to grow out a little flopping down over his eyes. Steve tilts his head to the side and frowns. 

“I mean it,” he insists. “I’m your best friend, Bucky. It wouldn’t have made a difference.”

Bucky scoffs and turns to smile at Steve, something so painfully broken and resigned in the curve of his mouth that Steve hates so much it makes him feel sick. 

“Really, Steve?” Bucky says, and his voice breaks around Steve’s name. “Wouldn’t it have?” Bucky laughs and there’s something bitter in his voice. “I mean, you’re my best friend, but you’re also _my best friend_. And you’re the nicest guy I know. And you— you’d just— you’d make a thing out of it and you’d start looking at me like you were guilty of something even though you have nothing to apologize for, and without meaning to, you’d make a big deal about it and I couldn’t stand that, Steve, you have to understand. I didn’t want— I could never put you in the position like that.”

Bucky’s words settle somewhere deep in Steve’s chest and twist, drawing the breath out of him like he’s still young and he’s just run a few laps around the block, ragged and painful in a way that Steve’s not sure how to handle. Because Steve can’t believe himself, that it’s been so long and he hasn’t noticed (how could he not notice?), because Bucky’s his best friend and they’re supposed to know each other better than this. Because Steve cares about Bucky in a way that he cares about very few now because Bucky’s one of the only people left who knew Steve before, who thought that Steve was worth something before he became Captain America. 

“Bucky,” Steve says and his voice feels hoarse and uncomfortable dragging up the back of his throat. 

Bucky huffs out a breath then, and it sounds mostly like he’s laughing at himself as he turns to look out at the city below. He lifts his cigarette to his lips and exhales a thick cloud of smoke like he wants to hide in it. 

“Part of me always wanted to tell you, I think,” Bucky says quietly like he’s confessing some great sin. “The selfish part of me, probably. Wanted to believe that it wouldn’t make both our lives more complicated than they needed to be.” Bucky pauses and frowns. “But _god_ , then the war happened and all I could think about was keeping your stupid ass out of trouble, and then I got drafted, and I thought, y’know, that’s it. That’s how this story ends. Except it didn’t, and you saved me, and you found this amazing woman. And part of me, the selfish part of me, wanted to hate her. Like really, _really_ wanted to hate her, because I was being childish and petty and it’d just been me and you for so long that I guess I sort of tricked myself into thinking that it was always going to be that way.” 

Bucky smiles then, not quite meeting Steve’s eyes, something tentative and almost bashful and shockingly warm. A strange feeling pulls at Steve’s gut, like a nostalgia for something he can’t quite place. 

“She was so good for you, Steve,” Bucky says, his words tumbling out disorganized and jumbled but heartfelt, as if he can’t stop himself now that he’s gotten started, and this is more open and honest than Steve thinks he’s ever seen Bucky, and he’s not sure what he’s supposed to do. Bucky runs a hand through his hair and says again, like it’s something he’s repeated to himself until he feels it right down to his bones, “Peggy was the best thing to come out of that goddamn war, and even dumb ol’ me knew that. And I was so happy for you, once I got past all that dumb jealousy, and knowing that it was a war and that you and her and I would all probably die before it was all over… I don’t know. It killed me, thinking about it.”

A heavy silence sits between them and settles on Steve’s shoulders like a blanket, and Steve knows that he’s supposed to say something, that he’s supposed to find a way to make this right, to negotiate the careful space that’s suddenly been thrust between them to find a way that they still make sense, but Steve’s got no idea what he’s supposed to do here, because he’s always been terrible at handling people like this and this isn’t just anyone he’s dealing with; it’s _Bucky_. It’s Bucky and he’s probably been the single most important person in Steve’s entire life, because he’s been there from the beginning, since they were seven and still had families, since they were first beginning to be adults and found that the two of them were the only family either had left, and Steve can’t fuck this up, he _can’t_. He’d never forgive himself. 

“She’s still around, y’know,” Steve hears himself saying, because his mouth can’t form around any other words, skirting around the issue instead of tackling it straight on. “She talks about you sometimes, on her good days. She liked you a lot.”

Bucky laughs like he’s resigned to something and flicks the end of his cigarette over the side of the building. He lets out a breath like a sigh and stands, stretching his legs, and Steve thinks that he should probably do something to stop him, because that’s what you’re supposed to do at a time like this, stop the person who’s walking away from you after a confession, but his tongue feels like a useless lump in his mouth. 

“Steve, don’t—Don’t make a big deal of it, okay?” Bucky says quietly as he turns to walk back inside, not quite meeting Steve’s eyes. “Really, I’m alright. I just—I got everything I needed to off my chest, so y’know…” Bucky makes a vague hand-waving gesture. “I wasn’t trying to get anything from you. I don’t expect anything. I just thought, since the cat was out of the bag, I might as well get it all out in the open. But don’t feel like you’re obligated to anything. I just—I just wanted to say it, I guess, after all this time.”

Bucky ducks his head away and offers to sleep on the couch, like he’s afraid that now that he’s said all this that Steve’s going to feel like Bucky’s intruding on something. And it kills Steve, because Bucky could never intrude on any part of Steve’s life, because Bucky has been such an integral part of Steve’s entire existence, because now that Steve’s got Bucky back he can’t imagine having to go another day without Bucky by his side. Almost every important memory Steve has is of Bucky, and the thought of Bucky slowly edging his way out of Steve’s life because he feels like he’s crossed some line that doesn’t really exist when it comes to the two of them makes Steve feel like he’s been gutted. Steve feels like too much hangs in the balance and if he doesn’t say the right thing, everything’s going to fall to pieces, and he can’t stand that, he just can’t.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Steve says at Bucky’s retreating back, because he needs to say something. Bucky turns halfway to look back at Steve and Steve says, trying his best at a genuine smile, “You’re still my guest. You’re not sleeping on the couch.”

Bucky’s laugh drifts back across the rooftop to Steve, already sounding faraway even though he’s warm. When Steve goes back to his room some minutes later, Bucky’s in bed and somehow quieter than before, even though this situation is almost like every other night since Bucky’s been here, and Steve gets into bed next to him too aware of the accusation that Steve would end up making too big of a deal out of Bucky’s confession. 

“Bucky—” Steve starts, even though he doesn’t know what he means to say, only that there’s this feeling swelling up in his chest that feels like it’s about to burst. 

Bucky smiles softly at Steve. “Goodnight, Steve,” he says, and clicks off the light. 

Bucky is quiet and calm in the bed next to him, not angry or upset or hurt, and Steve should feel okay, because this shouldn’t change anything, not really. Bucky’s still Steve’s best friend and Steve is still going to care about Bucky regardless of what happens between them and the whole wide world around them, and Steve should feel settled, because there was no expectation in Bucky’s confession, no weight, just simple, easy truth, saying it for the sake of saying it. And that should be it, but Steve suddenly feels like his skin fits wrong and can’t figure out why, can’t see a beginning or end to it. 

Steve tosses and turns for hours as Bucky sleeps on peacefully beside him until his thoughts echo back to that conversation with Bruce he had weeks and weeks ago (the quiet, curious, _Haven’t you ever been in love before?_ ), and he realizes with a sudden jolt so strong he sits straight up in bed with the force of it, because _oh_ , that’s just it, isn’t it?

\---

That night, Steve hardly sleeps a wink. He paces most of the night away, restless and on edge, and he ends up going on a run just to burn off the extra energy and gets back just as the sun is rising, muscles burning but no less settled than he was when he set out. Bucky’s still asleep when Steve gets back, curled on one side with one arm shoved under his pillow and the other flung out across the bed like he’s waiting for something to come fill the empty hollow of his chest. Steve aches down to his bones just looking at Bucky, at the open trust in his face, the peace that’s settled into the war-weary lines around his eyes in the handful of months that he’s been here. Seeing Bucky in sleep like this is something that Steve hasn’t experienced in _decades_ , and yet if it weren’t for the obvious scars that time and pain have left on his body, Steve could almost believe that this was another early morning in that drafty old apartment they shared in Brooklyn, after their parents died but before the war, when Bucky was rough around the edges but warmer than anyone Steve ever knew, when Bucky gave and gave and gave and still thought himself selfish because he never quite remembered that there has always been more than one way to be good. 

Steve’s sitting on the couch and pretending to read a book by the time Bucky wakes. He’s been staring at the same paragraph since he got out of the shower twenty minutes ago, the text before him swimming in and out of focus in an unintelligible blur. Bucky wakes silently now in a way that he never did before; no more wide, yawning stretches or lazy, sleepy grunts. There’s just a moment when something shifts and Steve feels a weight on his shoulders he didn’t a moment before and when he looks up from his book, he finds Bucky lying in bed with his eyes open, the hard lines creasing onto his face already as his body lifts out of sleep. 

“Hey,” Steve says weakly. 

Bucky scans over what Steve is sure are the marks of a restless night all over his face and frowns. “You look like shit,” he says earnestly, sitting up in one swift motion. “Did you sleep at all?”

Steve shifts and looks back at his book, trying to make it look like he’s engrossed in his reading. “Some,” he hedges.

Bucky sighs, and when Steve peeks up at him over the top of his book, he finds Bucky shoving an annoyed hand through his hair and glaring at the space in front of him. 

“Fuck,” he says. “Fuck, Steve, I’m really sorry about last night, okay? I shouldn’t have said anything. I can tell it’s bothering you, and I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable.”

“ _No_ , I—” Steve says maybe a little too quickly and jumps up without thinking about it, everything about him too jittery to go for anything close to subtle today. Steve feels his face flush. 

Bucky blinks at him and pauses, looking at him with wide eyes like he’s expecting Steve to say something else, and when Steve can’t find his voice, Bucky asks, “Steve? You okay?”

And that knocks something loose in Steve’s chest, like Bucky’s soft question, so unlike the sharp edges of him now, pulls it out of him.

“No—” Steve starts, and then, “I mean, _yes_ , I’m good. I’ve just—What you said last night, I was just thinking, I guess, and I—You said you didn’t expect anything of me, and I appreciate that, I really, really do, so don’t think that this is coming out of a place where I feel pressured or anything. It just really made me think, and I guess—I’ve never been in a place where I’ve had the time or the energy or the security to think about, you know, wanting something for myself. Because growing up, we were so poor and then my parents died and then _your_ parents died, and then there was the war, and in between just trying to stay alive and functioning, I don’t think I really gave any sort of romantic possibilities any thought. There was just too much other pressing stuff going on, y’know? And with Peggy, it was this sort of sudden, immediate thing, because, I mean, she punched a guy in the face at boot camp for trashing her for being a woman and not being American, as if that made her worth less than any of the rest of us, and I just thought, _that’s one hell of a woman_. And I think that’s the first time I ever let myself think anything like that. And maybe I haven’t let myself think that since then, because after I woke up, I was alone and then I was fighting again and I haven’t stopped, and then you _came back_ and that was all I could think about, that you were here, that you survived. And then last night, you said all that stuff, and I think that was the first time I could even think about anything like I could have a future with someone since the war. Because I think it hadn’t really hit me till then that this is real, that you’re here to say and this isn’t some sick dream my mind made up because I’ve been so goddamn lonely. And I just—I didn’t think—”

Steve pauses, because his thoughts are coming up in a jumbled rush and he doesn’t know how to say what he means without tripping over his own words, but it feels like so much is riding on this moment, like he’s on the edge of some great precipice.

“I think,” Steve tries again, hoping that his thoughts will come out more coherently this time, “I think what I mean is that—Well, see, I think that it’s possible to love more than one person, y’know? Like it’s not a one-off thing. Like you get more than one chance. Like I could fall in love with Peggy and at the same time, when it came to you—The thing is, I think, that Peggy was this sudden new force in my life, which is why I felt that _thing_ so strongly right away, but you, you’ve always been there, y’know? And I’ve been thinking, maybe I’ve always felt this way about you and you were such a constant and the way we were, it was such a steady thing in my life that I don’t know if I ever thought about the ‘why’ behind it. Like maybe the whole thing happened when I wasn’t looking and maybe it took losing you and getting you back for me to realize what that actually meant. And I think having that retrospect perspective and having that reference point of knowing what it felt like to fall in love all at once helped me figure out what it felt like to fall in love over the course of several years, and I guess what I’m trying to say is that maybe I’ve always sort of wanted this, even if I didn’t really realize it because I’m terrible at this, okay? I don’t know how to read romantic signals, maybe not from anyone or even myself, but maybe I’m not as opposed to all this as you think I am—And _god_ you’re just staring at me, Bucky. Would you please say something?”

Bucky blinks twice, hard. And then he does the most incredible thing. He laughs. He laughs and it’s not like the other laughs Steve has heard from him. It’s not sharp and bitter or tired and filled with years of too much war for one body to stand up under; it’s this warm, round thing that unfurls from the back of Bucky’s throat like laughter used to spill out of him during those lazy summer afternoons in Brooklyn, too hot to do anything, too poor to afford anything else but their badly insulated, rickety apartment. Bucky laughs and his eyes curve up into two crescent moons and press against the creases around his eyes that are so rarely used now, and Steve feels something seize in his chest. 

“Steve,” Bucky says quietly, shifting and walking over to Steve on his knees over the creases of the bed sheets. He smiles and the planes of his face are so soft that Steve could almost believe that he never went to war at all. “Is it okay if I shut you up now?” 

“Oh god, please,” Steve breathes out, and he can feel his cheeks glowing bright red. 

Bucky laughs again and his hands come up to carefully trace along the curve of his jaw, and Steve shivers at his touch because maybe this is what he’s been waiting for all along, because Bucky handles him like something precious, and when he tugs Steve down to meet him halfway, his mouth is warm and gentle on Steve’s. The kiss is soft and sweet and brief, the kind that lingers just a moment but leaves you shaking down to your toes, and when Bucky pulls away, he laughs and sits back on the bed like he can’t quite believe it. He lifts a hand over his eyes and laughs, and Steve thinks this is maybe the happiest he’s seen Bucky in his entire life and he can’t quite wrap his head around the idea that it was because of him. 

“I think I’ve waited my whole life to do that,” Bucky murmurs and there’s something beautifully delicate about the way his words sit in his mouth, and Steve just has to crawl onto the bed and kiss him again, and again, and again. 

\---

**Epilogue.**

It’s Steve’s birthday. 

It’s Steve’s birthday, which also means it’s the Fourth of July, which means that Tony’s dream of taking them all to Coney Island for the day so Steve can relive his youth should be impossible. But because it’s Tony and he’s all sorts of ridiculous and grandiose when it comes to doing things for the people he cares about, it happens anyways. 

Clint lets out a low whistle as they all stroll through the oddly empty amusement park. “I had no idea you could rent out Coney Island,” he comments, peering at one of the ball-toss games with mild interest. 

Next to him, Natasha snorts. “ _You_ aren’t a genius billionaire philanthrobot,” she says and points to one of the games where the prize is an enormous stuffed banana and dares Clint to win her one. 

As everyone starts wandering off through the amusement park to go on rides and play games and eat all sorts of unhealthy food, Tony shouts after them to remind them to meet up at midnight because he’s got something special planned that he refuses to tell them about (Steve suspects fireworks and fears that Tony has somehow found a way to make them explode in the shape of Steve’s face). 

“I haven’t been back here since we were kids,” Bucky says, and the flashing lights around them reflect back against the shiny metal of the arm that Tony designed for him, and Steve is struck by the absolute ridiculous of this moment, the two of them back here where so much and so little has changed, with the two of them so old and so new, war-torn souls trapped in such young bodies. 

“Neither have I,” Steve says and smiles a little sheepishly. “Felt weird, without you making me ride the Cyclone and shouting when you couldn’t win ring toss.”

Bucky laughs, and these days when he laughs, he smiles with his whole body again, the sort of thing that almost makes Steve forget about the lost years between them. Bucky slips his hand into Steve’s and the metal feels cool against his skin. 

“That still around?” Bucky asks, and when Steve tells him that yeah, yeah it is, Bucky grins and asks, “D’you think you’d still throw up?”

Steve snorts. “Not a chance,” he says, feeling a sudden rush of warmth at the easy banter that he and Bucky have found between them again (and it’s not always the same as before, because how could it with everything that’s happened, and Bucky still wakes screaming sometimes from nightmares of what HYDRA did to him, but they’ve found the people they are now and they’ve found each other and that’s enough). He looks around at the amusement park around them and then over at Bucky, at the brightness in his eyes, and wonders how anyone could hollow him out. 

“What do you want to do first?” Steve asks. 

Bucky shrugs and looks over at Steve, his smile the sort of soft that he reserves for Steve, that maybe he’s always saved for Steve. And then he says quietly, with the sort of earnestness that threatens to knock Steve over, “Everything.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading!! comments and kudos are always appreciated!
> 
> PS. I think I've been waiting literally since I walked out of the theater after seeing cap2 for the first time to use the line "I hated the war but I loved you" in a fic
> 
> PPS. again, please do go [check out the art for this fic](http://repeatingcarbons.tumblr.com/post/102767192737/for-this-wonderful-fic) and like/reblog the shit out of it because it's amazing okay
> 
> PPPS. also, come find me on [tumblr](http://nataliaromonoff.tumblr.com/), if you feel so inclined!


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